Three Days To See is the history of Helen Keller’s life, a life lived form heart not eyes. As she said that ‘I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days at some time during his early adult life. Darkness would make him more appreciative of sight; Silence would tech him the joys of sound.’
There are so many human who can submerge in the color and sound life but always struggled against all kinds of adversity from this life. Maybe when you suffer the loss of these tiny natural objects, you will learn that Keller saying that If we have once seen, “the day is ours, and what the day has shown.” On the one hand, she is so unfortunate that she had caught glimpses of the broad, green fields, a luminous sky, trees and flowers which the darkness that followed could not wholly blot out but only during first 19 months of her life. On the other hand, she is lucky for that her soul is sudden awakening in the summer of 1887, she got the new life filled with color, sound and love.
Keller told us the most important day in her whole life is the one on which her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan. She learn that object name from finger play and imitate it, but at first, it’s so confused about the finger word. Can you understand that when you close your eye and feel the word “d-o-l-l” which spelled into your hand by finger touch? That’s how Keller recognize the world. But how she learned the word mean? The answer is Nature. Miss Sullivan take her to the nature and placed her hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word “water”, first slowly, the rapidly. Suddenly Keller felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten, a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to her. She got the mean of “water” that the wonderful cool something that was flowing over hand. That’s first time she got the word so clear and impressive. As she noted: That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free!
The concrete object can learn it by touch, but how to learn an abstract idea, such as “LOVE”? The first conscious perception of an abstract word is “Think”, which was born in her mind when she concentrated her attention to think how to have arranged the different size beads. But she was greatly puzzled about “Love”. First time, Miss Sullivan kissed her and spelled into her hand, “I love Helen” but failed to got any ideas. Then she drew Helen closer to her and said, “It’s here,” pointing to her heart but Helen can not understand anything. Finally, Miss Sullivan told her that “Love is something like the clouds that were in the sky before the sun came out. You cannot touch love, but you can feel the sweetness that it pours into everything. Without love you would not be happy or want to play.” This time, it burst upon her mind, she felt that there were invisible lines stretched between her spirit and the spirits of others.
The Helen’s impression of Sullivan was that All the best of me belongs to her, there is not a talent, or an aspiration or a joy in me that has not been awakened by her loving touch. Any teacher can take a child to the classroom, but not every teacher can make him learn. He will not work joyously unless he feels that liberty is his, whether he is busy or at rest; he must feel the flush of victory and the heart-sinking of disappointment before he takes with a will the tasks distasteful to him and resolves to dance his way bravely through a dull routine of textbooks.
When Helen took advantage of word and meaning, she learned to read next step by touching books that each printed word stood for an object, an act, or a quality. It can make Helen’s mind occupied with a frame in which arrange the words in little sentences.
The next important event in her life was her visit to Boston, in May, 1888. In there, she obtained a lot of new friends who was also blind. She was first time to talk with other children in her own language, it made her feel thoroughly at home in new environment. And in the spring of 1890, she began to learn to speak. Although it was difficult, when you success, the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
If words and images came to you without effort, it is a pretty sure sign that they are not the offspring of your own mind, but stray waifs that you regretfully dismiss. For, after all, everyone who wishes to gain true knowledge must climb the Hill Difficulty alone, and since there is no royal road to the summit, you must zigzag it in your own way. You maybe would slip back many times, you will fall and stand still, run against the edge of hidden obstacles, you will lose your temper and find it again and keep it better, you trudge on and gain a little, you feel encouraged and get more eager and climb higher and begin to see the widening horizon. Every struggles is a victory. One more effort and you will reach the luminous cloud, the blue depths of the sky, the uplands of desire. You are not alone, however, in these struggles.
