Helen Keller became deaf, blind and mute at the age of 19 months old due to an illness. Later in life, she remarkably learned to speak, though not as clearly as she would have liked, according to her own words in this video from 1954:
“It is not blindness or deafness that bring me my darkest hours. It is the acute disappointment in not being able to speak normally. Longingly I feel how much more good I may have done, if I had only acquired normal speech. But out of this sorrowful experience I understand more clearly all human striving, thwarted ambitions, and infinite capacity of hope.”
Truly inspiring!
Here is a video on how she learned how to talk, narrated by her teacher Anne Sullivan (previously posted on Boing Boing):
If this is your kind of thing, go ahead and fall down this rabbit hole.
(reddit)
Previously: Helen Keller, feminist, radical socialist, anti-racist activist and civil libertarian