Helen Keller’s story is that of a person who at the age of only two became deaf, dumb and blind due to an illness and got completely isolated from the world. She was considered unintelligent by all and thus, had to live in a completely hopeless and dark world all by herself. Just before she turned 7 she met her teacher Anne Sullivan who helped her fight a slow and hard battle for reentering into the world. Helen Keller finally succeeded against all odds and it is her meeting with her teacher which she considers as “the most important day” of her entire life. The reason she does so is because it was only after meeting her teacher that Helen’s real life began. Anne Sullivan helped transform Helen from a wild and savage child to an extremely responsible one by teaching her how to connect everyday objects with English alphabets. She gave meaning to the mere signals, which Helen used to make herself understood, inside her mind.
Even the movie made on Helen Keller, The Miracle Worker, dedicates a part to “the most important day” of Helen’s life when she learns her very first word, water. Anne desperately tries to make Helen understand the work by signing it on her hand and suddenly Helen realizes what Anne is trying to tell her. She even tries to say her first word but only manages to say “Wah. Wah.” but herself continues to sign the word over and over again. Once Helen discovered the beautiful mystery behind languages there was no stopping her. Anne taught her to first spell out the letters on her hand and then to correlate the words with their meanings. Helen’s persistence and determination brought forth her emotional and intellectual capabilities. She had a passion for learning and this helped her rise above others clearing any social obstacle in her way to emerge as the first deaf and blind person to finish her graduation from college. Anne stayed by Helen’s side for almost her entire lifetime. She helped Helen when she was in college by laboriously spelling out her lectures and books onto her hand so that she could understand them.
Anne was single handedly responsible for turning Helen’s life completely around and her entry into Helen’s life has been described by Helen as “the most important day” of her entire life. Helen says that Anne took care of her as if she were her mother and revealed to her all the wonderful and marvelous things in life, but above all she realized the meaning of selfless love. Slowly, helpless and inarticulate Helen grew from being simply a blind, deaf and dumb girl into a highly sensitive and intelligent one who could speak and write with ease. But, Helen did not stop there and all through her life continued her learning process. When she became an adult she traveled all over the world campaigning for women’s rights, world peace, civil rights and human dignity, and laboring persistently for the progress and devilment of others. She became a prominent figure in the world authoring many essays and books, thus attracting not only awe and admiration but also inspiration and respect. When she died she became a characterization of victory over hardships of life and reserved a distinctive place for herself in our history forever.