Rest in Peace Christopher Reeve
By now news is all over the internet and cable news. Chris Reeve, the actor who played Superman in four movies and in most of the public's mind became indistinguishable from the character, died on Sunday due to a common complication related to his paralysis. He was only 52. Reeve wa a relative unknown, but at 6'4" he was the perfect choice to be Superman in the first movie in 1978. Since then there has been no substitute for Reeve as Superman. Back in 1995, Reeve took a fall from a horse during a competition and suffered a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the neck down. He never gave up hope that he would walk again someday and still continued to do physical therapy nonstop so his muscles would be strong enough for that day. He went through therapies to make sure he was strong enough to breathe without a respirator at length. He also fought hard to continue and improve stem cell research. Stem cells are the building block cells that are found in embryos and are thought to be able to heal numerous diseases and injuries if transplanted into a developed human. He was a beacon for people with spinal cord injuries because he was still out there speaking on their behalf, promoting their interests, and pushing to continue stem cell research at a time when people outside the science community had never heard of it.
I guess being paralyzed is most people's unknown worst fear. I worry about a lot of things during the day, but being unable to move my own body at will usually isn't one of them. It must be hell for an active person to literally be trapped in this thing that doesn't work anymore. But you have to have hope that something can be done for you. You could look at Chris Reeve, see him out there talking, maybe get word that he could move a finger, something to keep you personally going too. Handicapped people lost a big advocate in Reeve as did the scientific research community. I'm an advocate of biological research, unless it deals with things that are specifically designed to kill other people in warfare situations or deliberately created diseases. Part of being human is having the ability to use whatever capacity for intelligence you were born with to improve yourself, your community, and the future for those not yet here. Used responsibly of course, the research of today, may result in a day when diseases that are deadly now may be gone or easily treated.
I always liked Superman 2. They never really ran the first one that often, and the latter movies frankly weren't any good. But Superman 2 came on tv pretty much once a year. It used to come on ABC (ABC used to have the best movies like Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark) and I'd watch it with my grandmother. I didn't know anything about DC brand comics and wouldn't buy a Superman comic until many years later, but I liked the movie. It had the three criminals from Krypton generally tearing up Earth where i just so happened that Superman, the son of the guy that imprisoned them, was the number one hero. The special effects at the time were great and so was Terrence Stamp, one of my favorite actors as General Zod. Superman himself was going through a personal crisis of wanting to be a regular guy and not a world policeman and gave up his powers to be with Lois even though things were about to happen that he would need his powers to deal with. Chris Reeve as Superman was part of my childhood, separate from comics or anything else. Now another part of that time is gone and I wonder what it'll be next. The world, our everyday world, is less every time this happens and a part of our childhood is gone forever.