"I grew up trying to mimic the character you played.  Trying to fly away into the sky."
Cam Knuth (WI):  http://pathfinder.com/@@JrfHc3G@JAIAQIE3/people/reeve/letters4.html

        Revise. Revision.  These terms seem to imply participation, choices  —  a static end result.  Christopher Reeve underwent Revision — a holistic, forced Revision witnessed by the world as tragic drama.   I was there,  sighing with trepidation over the journey that he – and everyone he knew – had no choice but to begin.  Veteran:  I lived through personal Spinal Cord Injury Revision three times before it became second nature.  How ironic that I find this inevitable Revision so personally tacit now.  1979:  Gerald Williams, my step-father, sawed through a tree with his red Holmlite chain-saw.  As the vertical trunk fell, a dead limb dislodged from the wooded canopy, plunged downward, until it struck Dad's head, driving his neck down.  A High C 3 they called it:  Quadriplegia, he broke his third Cervical Vertebrae.  He could only move his head.  He just did not seem like Dad anymore because he was so different.  Abruptly, he changed from a vibrant outdoorsy woodsman to a man who lied in bed or sat in the Lazy Boy recliner in the livingroom. The Veterans Administration Hospital trained my mother to assist Dad.  Now there were catheters, a tracheotomy, range of motion – his life seemed so medical.  Our lives Revised too.  1983:  Mikie J. Erway, a close friend, said the Mail Truck cut him off as he zoomed around the curve not a mile from where I lived, first on the two wheels of the motorcycle, then none.  Paraplegia they called it:  He broke his back and would move his hands and arms.  He would never walk.  We were good friends, and I cannot remember ever crying over his disability because he was still completely Mikey J.  Before he went to the rehabilitation hospital he asked the Neurosurgeon to lean close one day during Doctor's Rounds.  Bassett Hospital was a teaching hospital; there was a crowd of students in tow.  Mikie J. grabbed Dr. Harris by the throat because he thought he botched his reconstructive back surgery.  That was Mikey J.   The next time I saw him I was a Quadriplegic.  May 31 or June 1, 1984.  C 6/7:  The 6th Cervical Vertebrae was dislocated upon the 7th.   I could move my arms but not my hands.  Disability verses Ability.  Binary.  Ability is assumed Normal.  Implications toward Revision:  Disability verses Normal?  Revision.  Christopher Reeve's horse galloped along:

 then the horse stopped and the man kept going until his head smashed into the ground.  Quite a freak accident.  [Freaks are and were people with disabilities — categorized as freaks because their bodies are on the margins of the predominant Culture's center, Normal.]  Was Mr. Reeve an inexperienced rider?  Not at all, he trained and practiced for years with prestigious equestrian trainers.  Was he exhibiting High Risk Behavior?  No, fence number three was considered relatively rudimentary.  Odds?  Bad Luck?  Karma?  Who cares?  It is irrelevant.  It happened.  It happens everyday.  It could happen to anyone.  Revision.

"I am so devastated.  Mr. Reeve is a gallant man -  this is a true tragedy!  My daughter used to compete in combined training equestrian events; I worried - but thankfully this type of accident did not happen to her - and it certainly could have!"

It happened to Christopher Reeve, the tall, charismatic Movie Star.  Superman.  What happened?  He did not move.  He could not breathe.  C 1, C 2:

"They told me in detail about the extent of my injury, and that after the pneumonia cleared from my lungs they would have to operate to reconnect my skull to the top of my spine"(Reeve 30 - 31).

"The fact that he is presently on a ventilator does not mean that he will _always_ be on a ventilator."

        He was alive.  Christopher Reeve survived.  People attempted to integrate this startling Revision for themselves, “If that were me, I'd . . .”  Kill myself.  I might have said something similar once.  Why?

"Perhaps we should ultimately expand the discussion to engage other issues, for instance, why are the two men who can at the moment most easily attract media attention Christopher Reeve and Jack Kevorkian? Could it be that currently the media is framing disability issues as cure 'em or kill 'em?"

Paul K. Longmore
http://www.mainstream-mag.com/hottopic.html

"I sat in stunned silence when I heard the news of Christopher Reeve's accident . . . when something of this magnitude occurs, it makes us all sit up and take notice.  It seems vastly unfair to me for someone as gentle and as kind as he is to be at the mercy of something so wretched."

Reality check:  The RevisionIS wretched . . . then it just IS.  Misery is in the eye of the beholder.  Christopher Reeve's Revision desecrated the image of an American Icon, the image of Superman the Indestructible.

"This unfortunate turn in your path of life has brought a “realness” to you that spans the distance between us mere mortals and Superman.  We get so numbed by the media and movies that it hardly seems possible you could ever hurt as a man."

As I watch Society swirling past me every person seems to feel indestructible.  Did the reality of poisonous Emphysema knock cigarettes from corners of mouths?  As cross-cultural, cross-gendered, cross-aged, cross-everythinged victims debilitate as AIDS suck their lives away, does sexual intercourse take on a threatening aspect?  Everyone believes he or she is Superman.  Superman cannot move.  Superman cannot breathe.

Superman is Christopher Reeve.  Christopher Reeve is Christopher Reeve.  Christopher Reeve is a human being.  Christopher Reeve cannot move.  Christopher Reeve cannot breathe.  There is no treatment.  This is irreversible.  He is alive.  I am alive.  I am a human being.  I can move.  I can breathe.  I cannot walk.  He believes he will be Cured.  I know I will never be Cured.
        The Press updated a greedy public with news of Christopher Reeve's situation.

"I was very upset when I heard the first report of Christopher Reeve's accident.  The latest news is grim."

Celebrities are considered public property.  Cultural Icons are communal.  Christopher Reeve relinquished anonymity and solace when he became famous.  [How sad . . .]  Revision such as this is a type of fame:  I will never forget the lunch line.  The lunch-lady reached for my money asking how Dad could have been hit over the head with a tire rim?  It was a tree limb.  Oh, she said.  News travels imperfectly.  The tragic is the unknowable — the unwantable; though there is an insatiable hunger for every update.  Did the newspaper stories after my injury change the context of my wounds?

“Arrests Follow Teen Party Tragedy”:
Seventeen-year-old Constance Laymon of Oak River Trailer Park in Index, on Route 128, suffered serious spinal injuries when she walked away from a campfire where the party was taking place, and fell from a 75-foot cliff.  The accident occurred between 11:30 PM and midnight.

Suddenly, I was famous – infamous?  Did the article list my Blood Alcohol Content?  No.  Did the article say that I was drunk?  No.  Was it implied?  Yes, yes, yes, yes.  Was I drunk at the time?  No.  Would it have mattered? No.  Was I used as an example because this particular party was a Skip-Day-Party?  Yes, yes, yes, yes.  Look at her – that could be you!  WGY radio announced my death, so I am told.  Friends cried as the respirator continued to inject oxygen into my contused lungs but they thought the machine was silent.  The machine sprang noisily back to life with apologies for the mistake.  I was drugged so I would not fight the respirator.  I heard about it much later.  By then I was not famous any more.  I was still a Quadriplegic.

"Christopher:
The last I've heard was that you could move some of the muscles in your shoulders.  I am convinced that this will only be the beginning!  Hang in there!  Don't ever give  up!  My prayers are with you (along with millions of other people)!"

Step by step the world lived vicariously through sound bytes, journeying along this road to see what would happen next — this was reality but it held the tragic drama the populous craved — only in this realm of reality the actor did not rise from the chair at the end of the film.  Paparazzi pursued visual images to sell to the curious, concerned public.

"It made me sad to see the fake pictures of you on the grocery store newsstand.  It showed you in a hospital bed with your head turned and sitting in a wheelchair as though you were sitting at the kitchen table . . . I hope that you will soon feel comfortable showing people how you look now.  I know that you are still beautiful because you have a beautiful heart."

After all, there were plenty of stolen moments to compare . . . Christopher Reeve walking tall, striding forward in his public-watched life . . . flying high, handsome, one of the Beautiful People, the special: These things do not happen to the chosen!  Or they shouldn't anyway . . .

"Throughout my life thus far, your proud image has given me strength. The very same poster that my mom brought me when I was three of Superman soaring over the streets of Metropolis still hangs in my room.  In fact, many portraits of you now grace my walls.  The ultimate good and strength that you represent have inspired me to forge onward at many a trying time.  Now I find myself in the paradoxical position of bringing strength to you."

Revision.  He cannot move.  He cannot breathe.

"I think that it is remarkable that he has used his mind so effectively to generate more awareness of the reality that many severely disabled folks, especially those of us who use ventilators, are still human, have feelings, and still have useful minds."

What could that look like?  Christopher Reeve had portrayed a man who became paralyzed — he looked like himself sitting in a wheelchair, no differences.  He rose from that chair before the end of the movie.  Doctors' stressed that he would never rise from this one.  He believes he will.

"To you and your family I express my deepest sympathy and my prayers.  As some of my classmates leave you as dead, I look foward to the day that you WALK out of the hospital, waving to all of your faithful fans applauding and cheering you on, as I did when you always triumphed over evil."

        Oh yes, mind over matter . . . just try hard enough.  I remember becoming very angry at a woman for telling her son that the reason he was not walking by now was his lack of belief — his inability to do for himself what god would hand him on a silver platter if only he would concentrate, believe and work hard.  This woman's god was satanic.  She seemed evil.  I was too happy not to believe, to remain physically paralyzed and mentally active.  I never believed in the standard god.  Some would point to this as the catalyst for my paralysis.

A 1997 Cinemania gossip column titled 'Christopher Reeve:
Inspirational Atheist' quotes his brother...    “Also at the In the Gloaming premiere was the film's director, Christopher Reeve, who managed to show up despite having undergone surgery only hours before to repair a broken arm.  So where does the former Superman star get his undaunted courage?  Well, according to his brother Ben, a nonpracticing Massachusetts lawyer who also attended the screening, not from God.  `We're devout atheists, so that wasn't it,’ explained the ever-nonpracticing Ben.” (column by Roger Friedman during the week of April 24, 1997)

Many people with disabilities cling to their version of god or reject the concept of god that has comforted them in the past.  Either way, with or without god, Christopher Reeve's Revision occurred.  The mortal world lived through this transition with him.

"I realize that nothing that I *DO* say will heal you, Mr. Reeve, and that I cannot, either, heal the pain of the Reeve family.  But my thoughts and prayers are with you all."

Writing regarding Revision:  I still have the huge scrapbook full of cards and letters sent to me after my injury.  They used to hurt me before I became comfortable with me.  When I read the cards and letters they took me back, back to a me who was someone else, someone who died of Revision – someone seemingly entirely different – even having a different name:

“Connie, Get well soon!  I'll never forget all the times we had in sixth grade and seventh grade.  Especially 7th grade square dancing.  I sure did have a crush on you in 6th and 7th grade.  Hope to see you soon.  Love, David H.”

". . . her interview with Christopher Reeve, following an accident which left the actor paralyzed from the neck down, was among the most extraordinary events in Walters’ career.  Broadcast in September 1995, the one-hour interview was the highest-rated 20/20 program in recent years and was watched by nearly 29 million viewers.  The following April, the broadcast received the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award."

        Disability equals economy?  Rarely.  Culturally, dollars are the bottom line.  I watched the interview three or four times, especially the sections regarding research.  After eleven years there were doctors saying there was hope.  Hope in this context is a misnomer.  If there were a cure tomorrow none of us would be transformed to one hundred percent, but, even a partial percentage was a good thought as I watched Christopher Reeve be an upper level Quadriplegic for the first time.  How tall he looked sitting in the wheelchair!  He was a baby in that interview — how many years would it take to shift his focus from a cure?  It made me sad and hopeful all at once.
        Christopher Reeve became a default spokesman for disability.  Not everyone was happy:  Individuals who had been in the trenches of social reformation were overlooked for appointments as Christopher Reeve had an abundance of offers coming in.  Disability issues were complex with splinter groups, many groups and individuals had beliefs and agendas conflicting with those of Mr. Reeve — especially his focus on cure.
        Certain activists felt that emphasizing cure devalued those living with disabilities, [Normal vs. Abnormal], by channeling resources and attitudes to strive to fix disabilities and not to deal with the societal systems that dealt with disability could put many at risk, or deepen current problems within systems.  Could all disabilities be healed [Any?]?  Probably not . . . the cure rallying force focused on Spinal Cord Injury, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinsons, etc. but many born with congenital disabilities viewed the quest for cure as a slap in the face.  Some considered Christopher Reeve an enemy of the people — people with disabilities.

"He will continue to be a problem for disability-rights activists.  His public role will likely become more obstructionist regarding the civil-rights of people with disabilities.  We must fashion strategies of response to his message, but this will not be easy."

Revision placed Christopher Reeve into a pseudo-community, a sometimes angry exceedingly diverse community.  This community included anyone and everyone –  a community every human would join given the chance to grow old enough.  There are no cohesive characteristics of this community – there is bitter disagreement even among friends.

"He is doing a great job, so people quit bitching and moaning about Reeve and worry about your own lifes.  We too can achieve success if we set goals.  We may never walk again but a cure should increase our functions and mobility and rid of vents.  As the song goes, We got high hopes.  Maybe for Mr. Reeve to survive he needs to believe he will walk some day.  I use music to keep my hopes and my happiness intact.  Music soothes the soul.  Sorry for the long winded response."

        Fame is one issue but money is divisive – most people with disabilities live below the poverty level [Which is living a charmed life in comparison to other regions of the world].  There are layers of contingencies to consider:  Those with life-long disabilities are generally not covered by private insurance  – no insurance provides Long Term Home Health Care [You could probably be incarcerated in a Nursing Home though].  So there are prescriptions, equipment, Doctor's visits, someone to assist with personal care needs to name a few essentials.  Generally Medicaid is considered the only “Safety Net” to provide these bare essentials for people with disabilities . . . the eligibility criteria is quite severe, to qualify for Medicaid you must be pretty damn poor.  Christopher Reeve has 24 hour Skilled Nursing care, high tech equipment, a few homes – many people with disabilities are envious of his position – C 1, C 2 aside.  Others can step back and view his situation for what it is:  His situation.

"He has earned his wealth and is entitled to as much care as he can afford.  He deserves recognition and praise because he has increased awareness about SCI and is trying to increase funding for research."

Christopher Reeve's Revision opened the World's eyes regarding disability.  Is it his fault he is valorized?  No – he has no control over perception – no more than any of us.  He began as a Celebrity, why would anyone think that this status would change?  He has more fame than ever before and is in high demand – he is the most famous Quadriplegic.   It is unfortunate he had to break his neck to do so.

"Well, my thinking on Christopher Reeve is that he has paid his dues & is entitled to his own opinions & his own agenda.  Many of us are possibly just a teeny bit envious that he has this fabulous opportunity to get his agenda out there, while the rest of us do not....What I have seen change since his arrival on the disability scene is that quadriplegia is no longer such a taboo subject.  I mean, people see that if he can have a quality life with the highest possible of injuries, then so potentially can everybody else with a SCI.  My husband is a C6 & suddenly that sounds better since Reeve is so much higher."

NOTE:  When I originally wrote this essay these links provided the quotations . . . obviously some have disappeared into cyberspace . . .

http://pathfinder.com/@@JrfHc3G@JAIAQIE3/people/reeve/letters2.html

http://pathfinder.com/@@JrfHc3G@JAIAQIE3/people/reeve/letters3.html

http://pathfinder.com/@@JrfHc3G@JAIAQIE3/people/reeve/letters4.html

http://pathfinder.com/@@JrfHc3G@JAIAQIE3/people/reeve/letters5.html

http://www.abcnews.com/onair/2020/biographiesDetails/walters_barbara_bio_2020.html

http://www.eskimo.com/~jlubin/disabled/vent-users/6/0007.html

http://www.eskimo.com/~jlubin/disabled/vent-users/6/0017.html

http://www.eskimo.com/~jlubin/disabled/vent-users/6/0014.html

http://www.mainstream-mag.com/hottopic.html

http://www.primenet.com/~lippard/atheistcelebs/pg31.html#a

Reeve, Christopher.  Still Me.  Random House: New York.  1998.