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A Second Look at Myself

by Samantha
(Vermont)

I do not believe Helen Keller is the most important person in Deaf History, but I do believe she inspired me the most. I have learned quite a bit about Helen Keller since I was first introduced to her life in the fifth grade. I have glasses, and I am hard of hearing.

I used to feel quite unlucky. Once I got both my glasses, and the news I wasn't able to hear very well (all within the same couple of months), I was discouraged and upset. In my seventh grade year, I had an assignment to write about someone in history who inspired me.

My class went into the library, and were told we had to check out a biography. I searched for a while, and stumbled into a biography about Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan. When I realized Helen Keller was both deaf and blind, I felt sympathetic, and then curious. I checked the book out, and then started to read.

Her struggle as a child made me look back at my own struggles. Suddenly I started to realize that 'Hey, I can hear', and 'Yes, I can see.' I could communicate. As I read about the battles she fought to be educated, I felt ashamed I ever was discouraged. As a 12-year-old girl, I soon figured out that I shouldn't feel sorry for myself.

Helen Keller's graduation and her honors quickly brought me to take that second look at myself. That it doesn't matter what disadvantages I have, but instead the power of experiencing the world in a different way than people without those disadvantages.

Helen inspired me. She fought, she lived, and she thrived in a world very foreign to those of us who can see, and those of us who can hear. She brought out a different person in me, and to that I am thankful. To that, I am inspired.

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