Mi carta a Stephen Hawking - My letter to Stephen Hawking

Title: LOVE.
Chapter 2, page 10 from "A brief history of time", after the train and the observer.

Es casi milagroso que los métodos modernos de instrucción no hayan conseguido ahogar por completo la santa curiosidad de la investigación, pues la principal necesidad de tan delicada planta, aparte del estímulo inicial, es la libertad. Sin ésta, corre seguro peligro de muerte... y creo que incluso puede despojarse de su voracidad a un animal de presa sano si se lo obliga a comer a golpes de látigo, con hambre o sin ella...

Albert Einstein.

Hawking: su tiempo y el del universo. So sees a blind person THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING.
Jane, his first wife. Lucy, his daughter.
Dearest Prof. Dr. Excellentissime Eminentissime sapientissime
Stephen Hawking,
now I understand VERY WELL!!! The key word is... E L O V! L V O E! Have you got it now? LOVE!!! Young blind people discover the world.
When I went to the blind school, my teacher María said always that I was a really mess in Maths: Hihi, "Mess in maths"! When we were FORCED to solve those horrible problems, I knew from the beginning that I would not be able to reach the correct solution. I used to take two numbers from the given data and started adding them. "What have you done?". She took my frightened finger by shouting and pressed it against the piece of plastic with the three dots representing the Zero. This system is now old-fashioned, but we had the -for me diabolic- mathematic box. It consisted of a box, obviously, closed with a latch. When you open it, at the left side there is a rectangle grid, with... Oh I do not remember the numbers of rows and columns. This part of the diabolic box was like a grill; then it was full of holes, little holes; for me black holes. The right part, the one that remains down when you close it, had six Casilleros? Lockers! Stephen Hawking for children.

Our reading-writing system, the Braille Alphabet, has combinations of six dots because Louis Braille –in that period of time he was a 12-year-old boy- discovered that the Barbier-Sonographie with twelve dots was not apropriated, for two main reasons: Blind people HAVE RIGHT TO KNOW the ortography -right-writing way- of words, and BEING BLIND DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN BEEING STUPID. Gennet Corcuera: A deaf-blind héroe!
Barbier Sonographie, a by him designed method... Hm, das ist Deutsch... Wait: Barbier's Sonography, a... Barbiers. Sonography, a system created by him in a military context with the idea to communicate at night in the darkness, was based on combinations of twelve dots. Little Louis, pupil in the school for blind Valentin Haüy,, had lost his sight capacity when he was three. His father was shuman... Nee: Hilf mir, WB! Ach so, I've got it! His father was shoemaker and once Louis was playing there with an instrument used to work the leather, a... Brrrr! Lezna. I do not fancy to search, you can understand me very well. When I think of your communication problems I become so angry, so angry, so angry... Because your brain is working almost infinitely fast but you must express yourself almost infinitely slow, damn it!
How Helen Keller learns to speak.
Sometimes, and keeping the huge distances between YOU and me, I feel the same: I feel that I am not compre... Compris, verstanden, understood? I am not understood by some people around me, which say that I am idiot / stupid / silly / not normal / strange / "completeTheGapsAsYouWantTo". I try to leave clear that they are wrong, but it is impossible; and so I collapse, yes, COLLAPSE: Dangerous illness from your book; the term, I mean. I do collapse and cry, cry, cry deeply and bitterly. For example: Since I have begun this letter, my laptop has been blocked twice. Now I have discovered the problem: My Screen Reader, Jaws, from Freedom Scientific, with voice synthesiser Eloquence, has a script that interfers... Sorry, from now until the end of this letter without dictionary; the bloody browser, IE8, is infinitely and boundariless stupid!!! I am about to drop the laptop from the lean tower of Pisa to have the joy to see how it falls, although I cannot calcul the acceleration, the trajectory and other diabolic formula.

Using a computer as a blind person.
Oh God God God... Sorry... Oh... Oh Bach Bach Bach!!! I was speaking about the diabolic mathematic box: I have lost the thread, the topic. But the script! A Jaws script-collapse... Again? Hm..., when I press the Back-Delete taste... Can you believe me if I say that I had written Bach-Delete? "Bach-delete?". Nein nein, Bach delete, auf keinen Fall!
The big questions.
Barbiers. Sonography blablabla [...] lezna. That was a... What do wasps have to, to... Um zu stechen, damt it! Ah, Sting! But now I can understand you VERY well. How do you bear these communication barriers? Darf ich von nun an auf Deutsch schreiben? Das wäre besser; but you are an English man in Cambridge, although you were for a few days in New York to meet Plácido Domingo at the Met: At the Met I met Peaceful Sunday..., = Plácido Domingo. Verdammt nochmal, ich haße mich tief! Deutsch ist einfacher als Englisch, tut mir leid!

Little Louis suffered an infection in an eye that went rapidely to the other eye and became blind as a tragic result. At the beginning he did not go to school. The School Valentin Haüy was only in work a few years before. Monsieur Haüy had seen blind people in a feer. Feer? The song of Simon & Garfunkel... Have I written it well? I have no IE, no Google, no anything: I am from the last millenium! IE is collapsed!

Those blind people were making apparently funy things; perhaps they also thought to be doing humor and fun for the turists, but what they made was... Oh I am crying; I am crying: I am crying deeply, strongly and furiously like green colourless ideas that sleep; instead I am not sleeping, because the night is wonderful: life is wonderful; our orchestra is... Nooooo, collapse!!! Now I am thinking that the whole mankind will see the lines I drop you from the lean tower of Pisa... Recollapse! Because you have NO POSSIBILITY to be sent [?] private messages. I can understand it very well: If the miliards of million people who love, praise and admire you were sending you private messages constantly, you would not have had enough time to study the space / time / no time.
Video: A brief history of time in two minutes.
Now there is light in my idiot, stupid, silly and crazy mind: Perhaps I was lost with English. You did not say that the universe is infinite, because that is not possible! That is not possible and I can understand it perfectly because it deals about language, about syntax. I mean... Before the Big Bang, there was nothing. Is that sentence logic? No, no, no and definitively no! Before... Before... Before... Not possible!!! If there was no time before the Big Bang, it was either no "BEFORE"! Very simple! My nephew Adrián is ten years old and I am sure that he could deduce it so quickly like me!!!
Master of the universe.
And now that I have solved the mystery of universe, or at least one of the most important misteries indeed, I continue:
Those blind people were... The beggar's opera. They were beggars. They were making clown things, like a tale I read when I was 13 and made me collapse: Oscar Wilde's "The princess. Birthday". No Internet, no browser, no... Mon Dieu: Firefox, come and save me! This netbook is from 2009, incredibly slow, but I get on well with Windows XP and not withWindows 8; Bach has put it on my way so that I understand the reason why you have HAL (your old sintezizer I mean) and not Daniel. Thank you!

"The Princess' Birthday" was the tale? I do not talk about the argument: You have read it; you have done all, also... Haüy cried and collapsed like me now, but he had constructive ideas: créer un'échole pour mal voyants, o la la, c'est magnifique! And so he did, secundum scripturas, but if it was written, that must be really boreing, as you think: Jesus does always what is written. That is fuori emozioni, come si dice...? Aaaah, I do not collapse! Emotionless! [?] Is it not allowed that God exit from the... Guidelines, the.... Rules, the... In a film, the argument... Kommunikationsbarriers, Hilfe!!! Jesus in a school.

Louis remained at home until he was I do not know, nine? He went to school but he could not read or write. But... You know the story of Louis because you know all things of the world and beyond it; also I do not make lose more of your precious and appreciated time not only for you, but also for mankind, because it is absolutely necessary that you are free to be there for all us, in saecula saeculorum, amen.

I continue with the diabolic torture instrument called "mathematic box". I am exorcising it and I am feeling relaxed, for the first time in my brief and miserable life [ironic joke]. [Ctrl+S]. Now, the matter was Braille-combinations of six dots! Six why? Because little boy Louis saw that twelve dots were too much for the finger... Finger PartOfTheFingerWeUseToTouch. I DO collapse!!! He designed a complete and very logical alphabett based of combinations from six dots. That was very limited, but as I do not know multiplizieren... Two by two and so on. As I do not know very well or scarcery well, and in addition I am very lazy, I do not fancy to calculate the possible combinations. But... Six dots distributed in two columns, three dots vertical left plus three vertical right: The magic sign; the magic two columns that opened the door to knowledge; wisdom; information; education; work; exit from beggar-state!!! Video: 5 yeard-old boy Reading Braille.

Louis, Louis, Louis! Wir loben dich; wir preisen dich; wir knien vor dir nieder; wir beugen vor dir; wir küssen den Boden, wo du getreten bist; wir... Häääää? I have not visited Coupvray [Oh, what is
that, "real hit"? Really it was so!!!]! I have not visited Louis?
House in Paris! I have not visited the School Valentin Haüy! I am ungrateful! Louis, I beg your pardon... Sorry: Je vous en prie: Soyez-vous si gentil de m'excuser, mais je vous promis d'aller vous voir. Bien sûr! Je vais le fair parce que je suive ce que je promis; puisque j'ai promis Monsieur Professeur Docteur Savant jusqu'a l'infinite et PLUS ULTRa de lire A Brief History Of Time Même si je suis ignorante et stupide: ¡Et je suis en train de le lire, et je suis en comprénant beaucoup beaucoup! Louis, j'irai vous voir! DIXI!!!

This mathematic box had also six lockers. There were three kinds of numbers, [ctrl+S]; the numbers were pieces, like in a game. They were prismatic and had thus four plus four positions. I mean, you can put each piece in 8 possible ways by turning it. Video: Teaching maths to blind people. But let it be! You can search what mathematic box was and look up a lot of photos and if you do not want to, you can go sleep and dream with far galaxies and freedom in space, and voyages beyond the space / time... Collapse! If you go outside the space / time, you can not go! A logical sentence! My ten-yeared-old nephew could understand it!!! So simple is the world, so simple! You are a genius! Not -not only- for the reason that you have discovered all the things that you have discovered and which dimmension I will never be able to understand if we consider that I am ignorant and silly and stupid, but because you have done that such an ignorant and silly and stupid lady understands the origine of the universe: Bravooo! And I must still say: Bravooo! [CTRL+S]

Video: How blind people uses a computer. [MSWord, the text could have characteristics that are not compatible with the selected format; do you want to continue anyway? Yes, stupid: Yes, yes, yes, yes. MSWord dialogue, [Dialogue says my Screen reader], you could lose characteristics from the original text if you select the conversion star point txt. Do you want to continue? Brrrr, I DO collapse!!! Let me live; let me live; let me live!!! What have I done to you, my dear personal computer? Should I adress my prayer to the informatic God? Who is the informatic God? Holy Silitium?

Look! Look! Look!!! Braille –sonography, I mean- was invented for military purposes; Internet was invented for military purposes: A is true; B is true. Conclusion: We are the worst race of the universe! QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM. Why? Because in order to go on, to go ahead, we need wars!!! We need wars to develope progress!!! That is absolutely not surprising, but it makes me quite sad: We cannot invent Braille or Internet simply because we have the noble aim to make other's life happier! Video: School for blind girls in Guadalajara.

María took my finger and pressed it over the zero. She shouted. Now I know, for two months I know: Sonophobia!!! Does it exist? When I was a Little baby, I hated toys who could move or speak or "have own life". At first I hated toys in general; and new voices; and new ambiences; and unexpected things; and claxons; and every Lärm. Nooo, I DO coll... And bruits... And... Brrrr, wie, wie, wie? Sounds no, unangenehme... Disaffortunated sounds... Disagréable... Bruits! Verdammt! Hm, that happens when I am thinking very fast. Relax, control, Deep breathing! Don't swing, my goodness! Anyway: you know what "ruido" is because you know all things of this world and beyond it. Audio: I play the recorder.
My parents did a wonderful work, but the phobies remained in lots of contexts. When I was with relatives or known and confident persons, I felt sure and protected; but even in this ambience there were things that made me collapse; for example new toys: toys who could speak / move / do things that scaped to my control, as I told before. I used to be closed in my world..., in my particular galaxy. Once, when I was three, my sister cellebrated a birthday with friends. I wanted to come in. "No, it is not your birthday" -said the Little girls who were not able to measure the consequences of their prohibition. Then I did not know why, but now... Now I think that from that moment I was for the first time aware of my difference. I went to my bedroom and started to make a lot of noise: To open and close the doors, to beat with hands and feet, to shout..., to jump... "What are you doing?". "They are Juan Pana and the Forty Cousines!". -was my invention. Now I am aware of that geniality: Bravooo, I was super!!! :-) I had found a way to soften, to fight against my solitude, my loneliness! Blind kids playing football. Normaly I was not alone because my parents were in each moment with me; I went to the countryside with them; I played with them; they gave me love, lots of love; and comprehension; and with them I was not afraid..., no, no!!! But... I never spoke of those terrors, never: only at school withe another blind girl. My parents could see from time to time that I was not relaxed and had strange behaviours at the exposition with the phobic elements; I became completely in tension without apparent reason."What's the matter?". "Nothing". I only wanted to be left in peace, because I thought that they would criticize and ridiculize [?] such silly fears. "No, no: Tell us, tell us, tell us". Then I could not exclaim: "Oooo, I DO collapse!!!". Instead of that I invented a story: "There are demons in the schrank... [?] cupboard. I am very glad that my dictionary and my browsers are slow: So I can understand a little more your barriers. Thank you! [CTRL+S]. Purcell with the New College Choir.

And so on. María pressed my finger against the zero and shouted: "But Rocío, my goodness! How did you put this zero here? Are you silly, creature?". Pain, pain: I could feel the pain in my finger. I could feel the scares of those insults expressed at the presence of the other fellows. Hurt, hurt, hurt. Before such glorious episode I hated Maths, but from that moment in forward I decided to hate them much more: deeply, hearthily, strongly!!! I took the two numbers again and I substracted them. "But
Rocío, my goodness, silly girl! [...]". After a few combinations, made without logic, I could solve the problem: "Oh, the flute has sounded!". This expression is said in our country, "Sonó la flauta", to indicate that there has been a casuality. So: the result is not a searched one, but an exclussion of possible combinations.

And so did it go until I changed teacher when I was 11. The new teachers LOVED me!!! I mean: They did not shout; they encouraged me to formulate questions and never said that I was stupid when my answers were wrong. They did not devaluate my achievements by exclaiming that "sonó la flauta por
casualidad". On the contrary they took me tenderly by the hand and... And I could understand the entire and fractionary numbers, the polyhedra, The area of circles and triangles and quadrats, the average and mediana and I do not know what more!!!
Video: Teaching blind children. Of course I have forgotten it, so long time ago. María is dead, "SIT TIBI TERRA LEVIS". She was good; I mean: books lover, intelligent, happy toward good pupils; but impacient when those pupils were not as she had expected. She could not measure the consequences of her actions. She did not know anything about my phobies and unsecurities! I forgive her. María:
Can you hear me from the ultra-world? Are your atoms inside a rock or some of your molecules belonging a complete different thing? Can you feel my voice? I forgive you; although I will be for the rest of my life an ignorant, an idiot, a stupid person! I will live with that, but perhaps for the same reason now I can understand better people who do not receive comprehension and LOVE.

Biagio Marini: Sonata sopra La Monica.

When I was 13 there was a blind school in Madrid. My friends would go there; but my father was teacher at the high school from my town: A town that I did not know in sense of having friends, having experiences, etc., then the blind school in Sevilla was 90 Km. far away. I did not want to leave blind schools because for the first time I had found LOVE, but I thought that my parents always were right. My life had been always so: "You must obbey, you must obbey, and all things will get better and better" -I said to myself in the strong belief that it would be the unique way to tell the phobias apart: error! Let us take an element called blind-thirteen-yeard-old girl. Take this element to a new ambiance, unknown except under the parent's umbrella, lead it to a high school where the father is teacher, and a good teacher, with good influences, and leave it in rest state for four years. As a result you obtain...

The other pupils went only to disco. That was horrible for my phobias, I was always frightened... Always? I might go to that Hell five-six times, but I still remember: I might sit on a chair while the others did I do not know what, because I could neither see or hear. I was deaf-blind there, but nooooo, I DO collapse! Unfortunately I was not deaf and I was FORCED to hear a music... Noo! Bach, forgive me! Music? The art of that sublime Euterpe? The art that so big composers and interprets have honored for the fortune of mankind? Music? Sorry sorry sorry! What I was FORCED to hear was not at all music! That was... Noise! The word is now here, NOISE! How could I have forgotten it? There was no VACUUM between song and song, and the surprise-factor due to variations of intensity was always there: That ment that my adrenalin was incredibly loud. Imagine you have drunk 10 cups of very strong coffee!!! So, always so: phobia, phobia, phobia!
But I did not say anything; I only exclaimed: "Dad, mum: I hate discos! I prefer staying at home reading and listening to music". My parents insisted: You must be integrated!". Then I was 13, egoistic, young indeed, and I did not know what integration really ment and why it so important was. I was only aware that I could not stand such bloody places. I also realized that my fellows did not have interest on me: They had been 8 years together before I arrived, they were intimes and I had nothing to do. The same as me with a friend from the blind school that was in Madrid. I was so sad, very sad, quite sad, infinitely and boundariless sad. But I found a place where I could hide away and forget. This place was called... Yes, I know that you know it, because you know all things of the world. IN fact I wonder why I am writing this letter to you if we consider that you know before I write what I will write, then you are the most intelligent person that did existe, does exist and will exist all over the not infinite universe. This place was called BACH. Only four letters, and even four Tunes: B flat, A, C and B. Four sounds for which Bach composed a Fuge a little before his death, I mean, his... Bach is not dead. Before he left new genes to continue the species. Bach! I remember precisely a day, an evening. It was raining; unfortunately that is not very usual here, and those years we had had a very dry periode. Consequently, an hyhpothetic five-yeard-old boy would have collapse if he would have discovered a lot of water drops that fell from the sky. That evening it rained, and I love it because I know that it is necessary and because I enjoy the smell to wet earth and the sound of rain drops very much, this wonderful music from the nature!!! I was hearing a Bach Cantata with the Tölz Boys Choir and tears fall from my blind eyes: ?Oh, oh, oh! What else can I wish? What else can I expect from life? Bach, rain... I am happy; I am full; I have a place in this universe!!! Thank you, IDon'tKnowWho!?. Pause to listen to music.

When I came to Granada to study I also found incomprehension: I felt in depression for the first time. There were too many people, even at the Blind Union ¡precisely there!!!- that were like María: Like her, like her!!! ?You are very silly: You cannot go well along the streets because your orientation sense doesn't exist. You are a lost case. There are clever blind, not so clever blind, stupid blind and you. I hope, before I retire, to find out what your case is". He tought me nothing and for the first time in a mature sense I knew that I was different: Bloody different, stupidly different, martian, intergalactic!!! The crisis in thos years were cyclic. I left the University without have learnt much; and most always alone, alone, alone..., alone with Bach and my books: Classic mitology, romans, The Quijote... Dear books, the best friends! Don Quijote: I love him; I identify with him! He believes strongly in a reality that is not real, but it is real because he believes it, and he acts according to it, although the others say the same that María and the orientation technician of the Blind Union once to me: ?You are crazy! You are stupid! You are silly! You are ridiculous!!!".

I started to work as music teacher in a secondary school, pupils with ages amounth 11-and 16. Phobia, phobia, phobia, phobia!!! Sonophobia!!! Schools are soooo noisy, my Goodness: I DO collapse!!! They shouted always, for all; and I did it never: never, never! I only said: "Silence, please! Without silence there is no sound! Without silence, music is not possible". They could not hear me: It was loud, loud, loud... So during 10 long years with lots of depressions, especialy because my colleagues said: "This job is not for you, you are blind! You cannot control the students, I do 90% of my job with the eyes!". Thank you very much indeed, Lady Cruel!!! Once, at the end of 2010, the situation reached a limit due to my lack of control, my impossibility to reach 30 pupils and teach them something useful; to achieve their respect and love, to be able to understand them and communicate with them. The schoolmaster and all pedagogic personal said the same: That it was not viable; and the Inspector responsible of that school came and concluded the following: "You can not teach Bach and Mozart, but the music they hear at home, at the radio!". What? Phoby! The anti-music, the no-music, the..., that! Nooo! I DO collapse!!!

And so I left the school, convinced by all to apply for a retirement -with my complete salary left, of course- that cost me an enormous shame feeling and five years of really strong depression: Why, I unable to work? Disable for ever? Rubbish? Other blind people are teachers: Why is it for me not possible? AAAAAAAAh! Because I'm silly; I'm stupid; I'm crazy; I don't know anything of Maths and Physics and other Sciences; I have not seen television and I have not gone out with friends of my age; because I am strange listening to early music where others hear Shakira and reggaeton!!! To sum up: I am not adapted to this world, to this life!

I tried to lose my former identity in order to be accepted. I left Bach, I left music, I left books, I left German television, I left all and saw me alone, alone, alone: disperately alone!!! You are THE UNIQUE PERSON to understand me, not only due to your intelligence, but also because of your condition.

OOOOh, now I do not collapse, but... NOOOO, I do not collapse, but... I... I... I... Please wait! I am crying!!! Oh at last!!! For courtesy, wait a little more! I have written during four hours, in the middle of the night. That is a secret between you and me! I have expressed a lot, a lot, a lot..., and to you..., why? I don't know you! You are an eminence! You have lots of investigations to carry out; lots of papers to write; lots of interesting things; thousands friends and colleagues that need you! You must be there for the world: It is cruel to be disturbed by a silly, stupid, idiot, crazy lady!
The reason is that you are the only one that perhaps can understand me! If you do not understand me I will assume, but now calmly and peacefuly and happily, that NOBODY will do it indeed!!! Now I know that it constitues not a serious problem, but I have lots of difficulties because people, even in my own family, do not allow that I am what or who or which I want to be, and not what or which or who they say or they consider as correct. If you think like them, I will calmly and peacefuly assume that I am crazy, stupid, silly, idiot and unpolite, but I will be the unique silly, idiot, stupid, crazy and unpolite Rocío in this world; and that makes me big in the smallness of the planet.
T. Morley: Dances for broken consort.
For the first time I am not afraid of death. You said that. I saw your 2014 film, in Spanish "La teoría del todo", those Christmas days. I was always depressed; I thought that hope and happiness were not possible for me: 5 years without crying! Yes, you will surprise... NO, you will not surprise, then you know all things of this universe and beyond it. Crying is the most important thing!!! It is a gift to cry; to be able to do it, I mean. So please... You will Let me cry a Little more, won't you? Only five minutes...! But do not worry! It is a cry of happiness! I have found somebody who DOES understand me: it is very important!!! [...] Mudarra: diferencias sobre El Conde Claros.
Ready and with handkerchief, thank you! After the film I went to the docu "The life of a genius", and there you said that you did not want to die. I was five years plus other periods in emotional letargy, id est, without having in the limbic system other emotions beyond the great pity and sadness and wish to... Collapse? Wish to... No!!! You said you did not want to die because you might do lots of things before. Oh my goodness! You deserve to be inmortal! Yes, you deserve it! But now I understand why you cannot be inmortal: If you would not die and your body remained frozen in time, you would repeat yourself, repeat yourself, repeat yourself until the eternity before the last big crunch [paradoxal again!!!], and it would be so boreing, because you would be in aeternum by repeating and repeating and repeating and repeating yourself, and you would not have somebody to love, somebody to hear, somebody to speak to, somebody to help, somebody to hug, somebody to insult (nooo, not insult!), and, the most important thing, SOMEBODY TO TEACH, TO TAKE BY THE HAND AND SHOW THE WORLD, as you are just doing with me!!! LOVE!!! You said that each of us according to our possibilities must try to understand the universe where he lives. You said it... But not only that!!! You said it... Oh wait, wait, wait!!! I must cry five minutes more, don't go! [...] You said it with LOVE, with PASSION, with... You... NO, no, no, I DO collapse!!! You LIVE because of that!!!
When you were almost 21 and aware of your finitude, finitude like all people but a very brief finitude indeed..., I am sure that... NOOOOOOO!!!
What I am going to say is very, very, very egoistic, I beg your pardon. In this tormentous period, in those endlos five years... NOOO! Let me cry, but really do not worry! I am so happy now...!!! I can understand Archimede after his discovering! Although he was not in a bathroom and didn't say "Eureka". And Newton neither with an apple over the head!!! Oh, perhaps nobody exists, all is a big tale..., and now I am writing to... To whom? And who am I, where am I, why am I here, where shall we go?

OOOOOOH I DO colapse!!! Oh yes, I've got it! In those five years, each day with each night, each hour with each minute with each second, my only wish was... It was... You know that, because you are the most intelligent, human and strong person all over the universe and beyond it. A life without feelings, without emotions, without company, without love is not a life. That is the reason why the bicentenial man wanted to die. That is the reason why you are not afraid of death. That is the reason why I am reading "A brief history of time"!!! That Christmas day I heard your old voice saying: "I'm not afraid of death, but I am in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first". My thought then was: "I am horrible, horrible, horrible! He has lots of troubles, even the risk to remain communicationsless! He cannot move, he depends of people every second!!! If one day his crew get fed up and under the weather and leave him alone, he dies!!! Let me cry. [...] <but my mind did not change in that sense: I wanted to abandon all and not to suffer more. A few months later, my acceptance in a really amateur music group and five days in <Germany with wonderful friends, magnificent music and a complete terapy by singing and playing at the street to lose the phobia to mistakes, alltogether with love and comprehension, made the rest.

Does emotional coma exist? I have suffered it during five years. At the beginning of april I have begun to wake up. The first emotion was even weap: Big amounths of tears; streams, oceans...! I cried during two days almost continuily!!! And then it cames... Laugh! But laugh; five minutes later weap; then joy; then sadness; then... I was drunken of emotions, after five years without feeling anything!!! Is that normal, Excellentissime, Eminentissime, Sapientissime, Humanissime, fortissime? Is that normal? My dearest: There are lots of people now that do not understand me; lots of people that find this change strange; lots of people that call me neurotic or bipolar. My dearest...! Do you know what I reply, for the first time in all my life? Yes, of course you know, amatissime!!! Repeat with me, please, I want to hear YOUR VOICE: I DON'T MIND, I don't mind, I don't mind, I don't mind!!!
Bravooooooooo!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! You are the best one!!! You have given me the most important lesson: There are no boundaries!!! With you I do learn because you love teaching!!! You have taken me by the hand and led me to unknown regions of the galaxy and of knowledges!!! Please don't leave me now!!! Don't give up! Continue writing; continue investigating; continue teaching; continue loving; continue laughing; continue continuing!!! PLEASE!!! DO IT FOR ME, OR I DO DEFINITIVELY COLLAPSE!!!

Do you understand now? Yes, of course, Herr Professor Doktor Waiser Leidenschaftlicher Hawking!!! TIBI GRATIAS AGO!!!

And now the last beg I hope you accept: Let me hug you!!! But I recommend you to be extremely prudent: Your life could be in serious danger if I apply the strenght you merit, my dearest professor Hawking!

Ich erinnere mich noch genau an den Morgen, an dem ich zum erstenmal nach der Bedeutung des Wortes «lieben» fragte. Dies geschah, als ich erst wenige Wörter kannte. Ich hatte ein paar frühe Veilchen im Garten gefunden und brachte sie meiner Lehrerin. Sie versuchte mich zu küssen-, aber damals mochte ich es noch nicht, wenn mich jemand außer meiner Mutter küßte. Miss Sullivan legte zärtlich ihren Arm um mich und buchstabierte mir in die Hand: «Ich liebe Helen.»
«Was ist lieben?» fragte ich.
Sie zog mich näher zu sich heran und sagte: «Es ist hier drinnen», indem sie auf mein Herz deutete, dessen Schläge ich jetzt zum erstenmal bewußt fühlte. ihre Worte befremdeten mich aufs äußerste, weil ich damals noch nichts verstand, wenn ich es nicht zugleich berühren konnte.
Ich roch an den Veilchen in ihrer Hand und stellte, halb mit Worten, halb mit Zeichen, eine Frage, deren Sinn etwa war: «Ist Liebe der Duft der Blumen?»
«Nein», erwiderte meine Lehrerin.
Wieder sann ich nach. Die Sonne wärmte uns mit ihren Strahlen. Ich fragte, indem ich in die Richtung deutete, aus der die Wärme kam: «Ist das nicht Liebe?»
Es schien mir, als könne es nichts Schöneres geben als die
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Sonne, deren Wärme alles zum Wachsen und Blühen brachte. Aber Miss Sullivan schüttelte den Kopf, und ich war sehr verwundert und enttäuscht. Ich fand es seltsam, daß meine Lehrerin mir die Liebe nicht zeigen konnte.
Einige Tage später rehte ich Perlen von verschiedener Größe in regelmäßigen Gruppen auf - zwei große, drei kleine und so weiter. Ich hatte mehrere Fehler gemacht, und Miss Sullivan hatte mich mit liebevoller Geduld immer wieder darauf hingewiesen. Endlich bemerkte ich einen ganz offenbaren Irrtum in der Reihenfolge, und einen Augenblick konzentrierte ich meine ganze Aufmerksamkeit auf mein Vorhaben und versuchte, herauszubekommen, wie ich die Perlen hätte aneinanderreihen sollen. Miss Sullivan berührte meine Stirn und buchstabierte mit großem Nachdruck: think (denken).
Im Nu erkannte ich, daß das Wort die Bezeichnung für den Vorgang war, der sich in meinem Kopf abspielte. Es war meine erste bewußte Vorstellung eines abstrakten Begriffes.
Eine Zeitlang saß ich still da - ich dachte nicht über die Perlen in meinem Schoß nach, sondern versuchte, im Licht dieses neuen Begriffs die Bedeutung von «Liebe» zu ergründen. Die Sonne war den ganzen Tag hinter Wolken versteckt gewesen, und es waren kurze Regenschauer gefallen; plötzlich brach jedoch die Sonne in all ihrem südlichen Glanz hervor.
Wieder fragte ich meine Lehrerin: «Ist das nicht Liebe?» «Liebe ist etwas Ähnliches wie die Wolken, die am Himmel standen, bevor die Sonne hervorbrach», entgegnete sie.
Dann fuhr sie in schlichteren Worten als die vorhergehenden, die ich damals noch nicht verstehen konnte, fort: «Du weißt, du kannst die Wolken nicht berühren, aber du
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fühlst den Regen und weißt, wie froh die Blumen und die durstige Erde sind, wenn er nach einem heißen Tag auf sie niederströmt. Auch die Liebe kannst du nicht berühren, aber du empfindest das Entzücken, das sie über alles ausgießt. Ohne Liebe würdest du weder glücklich sein noch spielen wollen.»
Mit einem Schlag offenbarte sich die Wahrheit meinem Geist - ich fühlte, es gab unsichtbare Bande, die sich zwischen meiner Seele und den Seelen anderer hinzogen".

From: Keller, Helen – "A story of my life". In German translation by Werner DeHaas.
Copyright 1993 by Scherz Verlag, Published by Arrangement with Doubleday.