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In The Story of My Life, what does Helen Keller mean by "If we have once seen, 'the day is ours and what the day has shown?'"

Helen said these words after describing her illness in her autobiography, The Story of My Life.  When Helen was almost two, she became seriously ill.  She survived, but lost her hearing and sight.  Helen had been very aware and eager during the first nineteen months of her life.  She was beginning to learn how to talk before she fell ill.  For years, Helen had vague memories of her young life before she lost her sight and her hearing.  During that period of almost two years, she experienced nature and light, and the "darkness that followed could not wholly blot out" these memories (Chapter I).  Following this recollection of life before becoming deaf and blind, she wrote of the empowerment that her memories left her with.  She then wrote the following quote:  



If we have once seen, "the day is ours, and what the day has shown."



Helen noted that because she had seen the world around her when she was very young, she she always kept those memories with her.  She remembered what she had seen when she had her sight.




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