Watch as this deaf and blind boy experiences music for the first time

[He can’t hear the music, but he can feel it/YouTube/WTHR]

A 7-year-old boy who was born deaf and blind experienced something his mom thought she “would never see” him experience: music.

In a heartwarming story reported on by WTHR, Elias Valentine-Wilson from Indiana feels the joy of music for the first time when a cello was put in his hands and felt the vibration of the strums.

Jim Crismore, a music teacher who “helps children figure out what instrument speaks to them best,” paired Elias with the instrument that he says “people like because it is the range of the human voice.”

And just moments into fiddling around with the string instrument, Elias has a physical response to the new experience that amazes everyone.

“See? Look at that smile,” Crismore told WTHR. “You are excited and look at that smile. This is as good as any music anywhere.”

But this phenomenon was first discovered a few weeks ago, when school staff called his mom, Judy Wilson, so she could experience her boy’s discovery of music firsthand for the very first time.

“I was so excited,” she said, thinking of that day. “I can’t explain it. I hadn’t seen him yet. That was the first time I had seen him.”

Elias who could barely communicate a year and a half ago, now has a grasp of ten signs, with one of them being “Yes, please.” And when he was asked if he wanted to play more music or if he wanted to stop, he signed just that.

Seeing his response to music has also given his mom a whole new light.

“I’m thinking my son is going to grow up to be… he might be blind and deaf, but he’s going to grow up to be the smartest, the best person in the world,” she said.