When you think about the obstacles you and I face in the pursuit of our sport, and compare them to the obstacles this man faced in his everyday life- It makes you (or at least, me) wonder if I would ever have the strength to do what he had done given the same circumstances.
I somehow held onto this hope that one day we would see video of Christopher Reeve finally getting out of his wheelchair. That money, determination, visibility and good fortune would give him back his mobility and offer hope to everyone with a spinal injury.
But it never happened. The clock ran out. He died before technology could catch up.
I wonder, would you or I, endurance athletes- pinnacles of the human condition that we are- would we ever have what Christopher Reeve had that not only enabled him to face each day, but actually champion the cause of spinal injury and paralysis?
Hopefully non of us will ever have to learn that. And it is a shame technology never caught up to Christopher Reeve’s injury. It would have been like seeing man walk on the moon to see him walk out of that wheelchair.
I heard pieces of an NPR interview with him this morning and he admitted to feelings of jealousy. I immediately applied what he said to triathlon, since when I began doing this sport, just the ability to BE ABLE to do it would choke me up in a race.
To paraphrase: When I see people do the simplest things, I get jealous. I can’t help. Just to get up from a chair and stretch is a miracle that people don’t even think about. You should never take the ability to do the simplest movements for granted.
I repeat, this is a paraphrase. I am not like Ken on Jeopardy.
Isn’t it amazing we can train and race? Cool, huh?
Christopher Reeves was a true inspiration. Like people before him, he showed his true character when faced with adversity. A lesser man would have laid down and given up.
I feel kind of silly saying this but he was part of the reason I wanted to go into research into neuronal regeneration. (I ended up not doing it but that’s another story)
He knew deep down that his cure was not going to come in his lifetime yet he kept on going for the betterment of everyone else that would come after. It is really amazing when you look at the field of neuronal regeneration, axonal pathfinding, etc. etc. and to see what has happened in the years after his efforts started… marked difference… I hope the work continues at the very least to honor his legacy
For those of you who were inspired by christopher reeve’s story should read the book “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” an incredibly beutiful book WRITTEN by a guy with locked in syndrome (neurological disorder where you are fully conscious but cannot move at all… this guy could move his right eyelid only) Inspirational becuase again a person faced with extreme adversity who does not give up