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Category: People |
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So many of our dreams at first seem impossible,
then they seem improbable,
and then, when we summon the will,
they soon become inevitable.
~Christopher Reeve, From speech at Democratic National Convention, August 1996
Further tragedy: His widow, Dana died from lung cancer in March.
From USA Today
3/7/2006 11:24 PM
Dana Reeve: 1961-2006
Dana Reeve's death leaves 'a hole in the world'
By Olivia Barker, USA TODAY
In Annapolis, Md., Lori Ezell instant-messaged her husband the minute she heard the news about Dana Reeve's death, after she caught her breath. In Fort Wayne, Ind., Jennifer Bosk, alternating between tears and a headache, was "knocked off my feet." In Birmingham, Ala., Joyce Norman stopped in her tracks. "I thought, 'Why am I feeling this much for somebody I don't even know?' "
Reeve lost her husband, Superman star Christopher Reeve, in October 2004. She lost her mother to ovarian cancer in February 2005.
And late Monday, she lost her own life to lung cancer at age 44, leaving behind a 13-year-old son.
Such a trilogy of tragedy came, as Katie Couric put it on Tuesday's Today show, as a "kick in the gut" — to celebrities, politicians and ordinary people alike.
Sure, carefully prepared eulogies from famous people poured in: the Clintons and John Kerry, Robin Williams and Meryl Streep.
But what is perhaps most striking about the response to Reeve's death are the extemporaneous reactions from those who knew Reeve from only a distance, if at all.
The audience on ABC's The View gasped when Barbara Walters announced the news. Testimonial pages popped up on the Web, from socialitelife.com to USA TODAY's On Deadline blog, which, as of late Tuesday, had received more than 450 comments, comparable to a posting on Coretta Scott King's death.
The deluge of condolences is "just a testament to Dana Reeve," says Maggie Goldberg, spokeswoman for the Christopher Reeve Foundation, the Short Hills, N.J.-based organization that promotes research into spinal-cord injuries (it reported revenue of $14.5 million in 2004). "What you saw was what you got. She was extremely genuine and she was the woman we all aspire to be."
In part, perhaps, it's because Reeve's Everywoman celebrity followed such an extraordinary script. She was a relatively unknown singer and actress whose public roles shifted to widely respected caregiver and activist after Christopher was paralyzed in a horse-riding accident in 1995.
Reeve had hoped for an Act II, that she'd resume her career as she tended to her husband's legacy. But the cruel irony of a Superman made virtually immobile was compounded when Dana Reeve, who didn't smoke, disclosed she had lung cancer in August, 10 months after her husband's death. But, in public at least, Reeve approached her illness with steely resolve.
"I learned a long time ago that life just isn't fair, so you have to stop expecting it to be," she said during a foundation fundraiser in New York in November.
"After Christopher died, I think the feeling — unconscious, sort of unarticulated — was, 'This family suffered enough. They don't need another tragedy,' " says Harold Kushner, rabbi laureate of Temple Israel in Natick, Mass., and author of the seminal 1981 book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. "I think that's why they're responding so strongly."
He adds: "We felt close to her, and we feel bereaved to find that she died."
And knowing that Reeve's son, Will, is now an orphan exacerbates that feeling. (Christopher Reeve had two grown children, Matthew and Alexandra, but it's unclear who will take care of Will.)
When she learned of Dana Reeve's death, Norman's first sobering thoughts turned to Will. Soledad O'Brien, a mother of four, delivered an emotional report on CNN. "Thirteen is a terrible age to lose one parent, much less two," she said later.
J. Shep Jeffreys, author of Helping Grieving People: When Tears Are Not Enough, says many people are so struck by Reeve's death because it forces them to question how vulnerable they are — to illness, to accidents, to bad fortune in general.
"It puts a shudder of fear through us," he says. "You think, 'That could have been me.' "
Reeve's death also seems a cruel blow to a family whose life "was filled with hope for recovery, at least hope of doing something for others," Jeffreys says. "She comes across as this very good person ... and to have her contract this illness is very scary for all of us."
Hearing news like this, he says, "you can't tune it out."
Bosk sure can't. She met Reeve last May, when Bosk, alumni director for Indiana University-Purdue University, booked her to give a speech. But Tuesday went "downhill" after she got word. She and the other women on her event committee e-mailed, phoned and cried.
It was only a day of hanging out with Reeve "but the bonding was just instantaneous," says Bosk, 54. "She shakes your hand and then pulls you into a hug |
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