Who is Your Miracle Worker?

 Anne Sullivan became known as the "teacher" of Helen Keller. If not for Helen Keller's remarkable disabilities, few people would have known the name Anne Sullivan. Helen Keller was a deaf, mute, and blind child who became disabled by disease at nineteen months. Her family found her impossible to live with because the family had no skills to train a disabled child. Helen's mother reached out to the Perkins School for the Blind to have her daughter taught basic life skills. Anne Sullivan, an unemployed graduate of the Perkins School for the Blind, was offered the job, and because she had no other options, she was advised to take it. Anne's fame in adulthood grew from her association with Helen Keller. Without Anne Sullivan's continued one-on-one assistance, neither woman could have achieved such notoriety.

Mark Twain obtained funds for Helen's (with Anne's assistance) college education from the industrialist and Standard Oil magnate Mr. and Mrs. Henry Huttleson Rogers. Throughout her life, Helen Keller would rely on Anne, volunteer tutors, individual donors, and friends who provided braille books, translation, and interpretation services. Anne married a socialist professor, who edited Helen's books. Anne joined the Suffragist movement and, each time, took Helen with her. Helen then wrote books and gave lectures on socialism and women's rights through Anne Sullivan Macy's influence, her only resource to the outer world. Helen's mother prevented her from marrying; Helen was not free to choose her life. When Anne Sullivan Macy died, Helen's book publications slowed to a halt.

Who is our "Miracle Worker?"  What thoughts and actions are we judging true? If I have learned anything after almost a century, it is that we need boundaries. We can see great progress in our society over the last 250 years. We learned from past mistakes, corrected them, and everything is getting reorganized toward a better life. Humanity is uniting to stop abuse. Thank goodness for the good in the world. Good always wins.

                                        "Your life is a gift to the world, use it wisely."