New day. New hero for my children.

At first, I had both Helen Keller AND Anne Sullivan in Heroes For My Son. But the more I read about them, the more I realized that I wanted to save one of them for my daughter. The story was just too beautiful. And so, the story we used in the book is about Anne Sullivan. When Helen Keller was accepted to college at Radcliffe, one of the deans convinced her to delay her entry for a year — he said it’d be too hard. A year later, Helen risked it and entered college. But without Braille books, she had to rely on Anne Sullivan “hand-writing” all the books in the palm of Helen’s hand. What I didn’t know was that Anne Sullivan had her own eye problems — and a doctor warned Anne that if she continued to help Helen, she’d risk going blind herself.

Anne Sullivan never stopped. Never once.

And of course Helen Keller graduated.

Cum laude.

To add to it, see this video (YouTube), sent to me this morning. It’s rare newsreel footage of them.

So to all the teachers out there, thank you.