A story that makes you want to read it again and again and inspires you:
The largest hospital for mental patients in America was "Tewksbury State Hospital". It was first used as a shelter for the very poor. It is currently being used as a public health museum.
One day, the famous doctor, Dr. Frank Mayfield, visited that museum. While walking around, he met an old cleaner. In a soft voice, he asked her - How long have you been working here?
The old woman slowly wiped her hand on her apron and said - Since the very beginning of this museum.
Dr. Mayfield was curious and asked - Can you tell me something about this place.
The old woman smiled and said - I may not be able to tell you much. But I can show you a special place.
The old doctor took the old doctor to the basement at the very bottom of the museum. Where time seemed to have stopped. Pointing to a small, rusty iron cage in a smoky corner, she said in a trembling voice, "Once upon a time, they kept a little, wild, helpless girl here as a mental patient. Her name was Annie Sullivan." The doctor was surprised and asked, "Which Annie Sullivan are you talking about?" The old woman said slowly, "Yes. That little, wild, helpless, foundling. The doctors had given up. The nurses avoided her. She screamed, bit, and threw food. She was locked up in this little iron cage day and night. Food and water were all given inside the cage." The old woman's voice trembled again and again. I lived here with my mother at the time. My mother was also a cleaner. And I was several years younger than Annie. One night after work, I made some brownies. The next morning, I left them by her door and said, "Dear Annie, I made these just for you." Then I ran away. If she throws the brownies at me out of fear.
The old woman smiled sweetly now, remembering her old days.
But she didn't throw them. She played with them little by little. The next day, when I went by the cage, she looked at me and smiled. From then on, I talked to her. Sometimes she laughed a little louder.
A nurse noticed this and asked me to help calm Annie. She went in, took Annie's hand, and stroked her head. She stayed by her side. And that's when they discovered that Annie was not really violent, not wild, but that she was, so to speak, a poor, almost blind girl.
After a long and painful treatment, Annie recovered a little and was sent to the Perkins Institute. Where the blind were taught. There she learned to read, write, and one day became a teacher herself.
Several years later, Annie returned to Tewkesbury to help orphans and the poor like her. One day, the hospital director received a letter asking for help for a blind and deaf girl. The director then requested someone who could take care of her with motherly affection.
Annie Sullivan then accepted the girl. She took her in her arms and loved her. She fed her. She cleaned her. She put her to sleep in bed. She sat up at night and told stories. She slowly raised the girl with tireless patience and creative reading and writing. The little blind and deaf girl who grew up with Annie Sullivan's utmost compassion later became the great woman Helen Keller, a source of inspiration to the world, a beacon of light in the lives of the blind.
Many years later, when Helen Keller received America's highest honor, the "Presidential Medal of Freedom", she was asked who had the greatest influence on her life. Helen Keller smiled and said, "My most respected teacher, Annie Sullivan."
But Annie whispered with tears in her eyes, "No, Helen." Our lives were changed by the Tewkesbury cleaner who shared her brownie with a lonely little girl in a dark corner of the hospital basement.
Indeed, there is no greater inspiration in the world than kindness. Sometimes even a small kindness becomes a force that lights up the darkness and brings new hope to hopeless hearts.
In the picture, the great teacher known as the Miracle Worker, Annie Sullivan, and eight-year-old Helen Keller are shown with a doll in her arms.
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