As with so many of the greatest romances, love and tragedy go hand-in-hand. Hollywood is no
exception. The love story of Christopher and Dana Reeve is so full of tragedy, it is unfair.
However, their love is only deepened from sorrow,
and the difference they made in the world following their painful ordeal is incredible.
In the summer of 1987, Christopher Reeve attended the Williamstown Theatre Festival
in Massachusetts. While sitting front row at a late-night performance by the Cabaret Corps,
Christopher noticed one of the singers. She was a pretty blond with a beautifully vibrant smile
and a voice like a songbird. His eyes never left the stage.
As the show ended, the star went up to the young woman and introduced himself. He was already in
love. Dana, on the other hand, was not very sure about going out with a Hollywood star.
She’d fully expected to meet an arrogant jerk, as one often assumes of men in his position.
The man Dana met was soft-spoken, kind, and not far removed from Superman’s alter ego,
Clark Kent. She was caught off guard by his interest in having a conversation with her.
And later, when he called her, Dana agreed to go on a date with Christopher.
Five years later, on a rainy day in that same Williamstown, the lovebirds exchanged vows
before a small gathering of friends and family. The intimate ceremony was simple yet romantic.
Their plain, gold wedding bands spoke volumes of what was truly important to them: their deep
and endless love. Years later, Dana proved they were not mere words but an everlasting promise.
In 1985, Christopher took up horse riding after filming the movie Anna Karenina. As
with every task he set his mind to, he became really good, and it was not
long before he began competing in events. As Dana had long been an accomplished horse
rider herself, it was yet another mutual interest they shared, and the pair would
spend long days riding and jumping. In May 1995, Christopher traveled to
Virginia to compete in a jumping event on his thoroughbred stallion, affectionately known
as Buck. It wasn’t a freak kick or buck by the horse. Instead, it was deadly in its simplicity.
On the third jump — a standard three-foot jump – Buck came surging towards a wall to jump,
panicked, and stopped. Reeve was thrown forward, head-first over the horse,
and landed on the ground in a near-perpendicular position. The weight of Reeve’s 6 ft., 4 inches,
230 lb. body shattered his top two vertebrae and severely damaged his spinal cord.
Reportedly, the extent of his injury meant his skull and spine were no longer connected.
This resulted in fluid buildup in his lungs, constant pain,
and an inability to breathe on his own, as well as complete paralysis from the neck down.
He’d filmed a movie where he played a person with paraplegia seven months prior. He’d spent
substantial time around people with spinal cord injuries in preparation for that role. Every day,
he’d left their clinic feeling grateful for not being in their predicament. And now he was there.
In the days following his injury, Chris would lay in the hospital, completely immobile,
powerless, preparing to have surgery to have his skull reattached to his spine. The mere ability
to lift his hand to brush his teeth was gone. Reeve was heartbroken. He could not believe
what had happened to him. The road to recovery was challenging, to say the least.
And at one particularly difficult stage during his rehabilitation,
he actually considered giving up his life. One can imagine, after a life of such freedom,
being able to do anything you wanted, with a budget to pursue any passion,
just how challenging it would be to suddenly be confined to such a cruel fate.
He wanted it to end immediately. Christopher quietly whispered to Dana,
“Maybe we should let me go.” But she was not ready to let go of the man she loved.
Instead, she assured her husband that she would always be there for him no matter what.
“I am only going to say this once: I will support whatever you want to do because this is your life
and your decision. But I want you to know that I’ll be with you for the long haul,
no matter what. You’re still you. And I love you,” said Dana.
Commenting on this a couple of years later, she added, “When it’s actually the person you love,
the person you know and there’s no head injury, no brain damage,”
she said. “It’s him. It’s the essence of him, and that’s what I said to him. I said, ‘It’s you.’”
She asked him to hold on for two years and then decide if
he still wanted to consider saying goodbye to life forever. He accepted.
He eventually settled into his new life, and Dana stood by her words and
by his side. They still lived, did things together, and found ways to have fun.
After six long months of rehabilitation and drastic renovations,
Christopher and Dana returned home, a very different couple, but more in love than ever.
“We’ve now transcended into something where our moments together are even more valuable
than they ever were. And I would not be where I am today with the positive outlook that I have
and the sense of real hope and purpose if it were not for Dana,” said Christopher.
The couple’s affection for one another was always apparent. Even though Christopher
couldn’t feel his wife’s touch, she constantly put her hand on his arm or nuzzled his cheek.
“We’re as physical with each other as we can be. And we’re
as close as we can be,” said Dana in 2002. Never shying away from a challenge, Reeve decided
to use his very public profile to educate people on and raise awareness of spinal cord injuries.
“We (humans) are all one big family. This has taught me a big lesson about complacency.
We should never walk by someone in a wheelchair and be afraid of them or think of them as a
stranger. That could be us. In fact, it is us,” he said during an Oprah interview.
The couple struggled to find a cure for paralysis, testifying before Congress and
holding fund-raisers. Further to his many television interviews, Christopher founded
the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation (later renamed the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation),
which raises much-needed research money. All the while, his beloved wife Dana was
by his side, out of the spotlight. Still, always supporting, helping, loving — the press labeled
her Saint Dana and Superwoman, to which she replied: “Initially, I felt very uncomfortable
with that. Then I thought, ‘Really, my job here is to be the voice for the many, many spouses
who are caregivers, who don’t have the advantage of the world patting them on the back every day.”
In 2004, Dana was shattered. It was October, and Christopher and Dana were working on opposite
sides of the country — Christopher was promoting The Brooke Ellison Story, which he had directed,
and Dana was performing on stage in LA. It was the first time since the accident
that they had been so far apart. Christopher was being treated at the time for a pressure
wound and had been prescribed antibiotics. On Saturday, October 9th, Christopher took his
evening dose of the antibiotic and suddenly went into cardiac arrest before falling into a coma.
It was all so sudden and unexpected that Dana could do nothing but board the next
flight home upon hearing the news. The hours before she could be beside Christopher’s
side must have felt like an eternity. Despite his comatose state, it seemed as though
Christopher was waiting for Dana, as shortly after her arrival, he tragically passed away.
Her Superman had left her in a sudden cardiac arrest. After all they had been through, after
surviving for so long, it was incomprehensible for it to end like this, so suddenly. But it had.
After 12 years of knowing each other and supporting each other through all the tough times,
she was left alone. But she could not stop loving him. In an interview after his death, Dana said,
“I promised to love, honor, and cherish him till death do us part.
Well, I can’t do that. Because I will love, honor, and cherish him forever.”
Dana, although grieving, knew that Christopher had left an incredible legacy,
and the work and research he had set in motion could not end now. One month after his death,
she was unanimously elected the new chairperson of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation.
Christopher was gone, but he lived on through the fantastic work Dana was now doing on his behalf.
Within months of Chris’s unexpected death, she suffered the sudden loss of her mother,
whom she was very close to. Then, Dana was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.
Despite everything, Dana managed to stay positive. She wasn’t just resilient;
she was joyful about life. “I’m just a woman whose husband fell off a horse, and I’m taking
care of him and that’s what you do.” Tragically, Dana passed away
only 18 months after Christopher. For every gut-wrenching event thrown at them,
they managed to not only fall more deeply in love but used the occurrence to make a difference in
the world. Passionate, determined, persistent — Christopher and Dana’s great love story is
inspiring and encouraging. It’s yet another reminder to embrace the moment and each other.