That’s funny. I’ve heard of Dale Ernhart (race car driver or something?) but didn’t have the faintest clue he died until now. Maybe this is a regional thing. Clearly the biggest celebrity death of recent times was Ronald Reagan, though it wasn’t really a shock.
It’s less sad that a guy doing Polo or Steeplechase or Dressage or Fox Hunting (real sports for the common man) broke his neck than if it was a jockey or a football player who was doing it for his livelihood, for his career.
What about people who just play football for fun? They shouldn’t do it unless they are unmarried and childless? What if they are supporting their poor widowed mother?
Fox hunting is a sport for the common man?
I thought Christopher Reeve was injured during a horse trial (eventing) not polo, fox hunting, or dressage. Not that polo players, dressage riders, or fox hunters are always super rich anyway. Plus, I think many steeplechase jockeys are pros just as flat race jockeys are.
I still don’t get it. I have friends with money who boat, race motorcylces or sports cars, etc. If they were injured while doing so, should I feel less sympathy for them because their activity cost something?
Yes, I am.
Christopher Reeve meant a hell of a lot to my father, who collects not only the comics but has the movies. This might just seem like your average “geek-boy grows up, keeps his comics” story, but the fact is that he’s only been collecting them for the past few years as a form of therapy (the specific purpose is not entirely relevant to this thread, but standard offer: if you wanna know, gmail and I’ll be happy to share).
I feel more of a connection to Christopher Reeve than many other folks my age (or above/below) do because my father shared with me a lot of his reasons for collecting the comics and movies. There’s a fairly long list of things that cause me to feel sad, though, and those don’t necessarily involve things my father and I share(d). It’s just a difference of experience and reaction in me.
Man this bummed me out a bit.
I felt badly for him when he had his accident, and I couldn’t help but feel bad when I’d see him on television in that wheelchair. I know he did wonderful things in terms of research and advancements, but it was still hard to look at him and imagine how horrible his life must be.
So, no, I didn’t feel sad when I heard he died, I felt glad for him that he got released from the prison that was his life. I’m sure it’s hard on his family, but hopefully his wife will now have a chance to move on and perhaps meet another man that she can be with. She has to be exhausted from taking care of him all this time.
Any sadness I feel due to Reeve’s death is rooted entirely in the fact that I knew that there would be people who would suggest that we need to “honor” Reeve’s “legacy” by changing U.S. policy to mirror his position on stem cell research. And lo and behold, the man’s body wasn’t cold before Kerry was doing just that.
He was an actor. He went through something terrible (largely of his own doing) and yet did good things thereafter. So do thousands of people every day. Big friggin deal.
It’d be nice to hear someone applaud the position my friend Del has on stem cell research, but what the hell does he know? He’s just a biochemist. He also happens to be paralyzed in much the same way as Reeve (but lower, so Del still has use of his arms). And Del was injured when some crackhead gangbanger mistook him for an enemy and shot him as he was walking home one day. But he never wore tights in a movie, so he toils in obscurity. Whatever.
No. Just no. Christopher Reeve would roll over in his grave to hear you say that (he has been buried, right?). His wife, from what I have read, would contradict you. You are perpetuating a stereotype that simply isn’t true.
Sure, being paralyzed takes getting used to, and it changes a lot of things in a person’s life. But the large majority of quadriplegics and paraplegics report good quality of life. What hurts more than being paralyzed, frankly, is people like you assuming that they would rather be dead and that their families are better off without them. Just think about that a minute–how would it feel to know that your life can and will go on, that you can work, and love, and laugh again, but that there is a certain segment of the population out there who would see you and “imagine how horrible [your] life must be.”
I know this probably comes from a good place in your heart, but please, please don’t continue to spread this stereotype. I just talked with a young man today who is going home tomorrow. He was shot 2 months ago and is paralyzed. He is looking forward to his life, as he should. I picture him reading your post and I just want to scream. He, and others with SCI, don’t need your pity.
Kerry was fighting for stem-cell research before Reeve died. If Reeve’s fame can help attract attention and thereby get more money for research that may help your friend Del, I fail to see what you’re so bent out of shape about. Everyone is not equally famous?
My books don’t make as much money as Stephen King’s. Big deal. I’m over it.
I take offense at this remark. I come from “horse people” on both sides of my family, none of it rich. When you are thrown from a horse the earth doesn’t care how much money you have in the bank when you hit headfirst. A cousin of mine makes her living as a jockey. There are a few rich jockeys but the overwhelming majority are barely scraping by. She had an accident about ten years ago when a horse broke down in a race in Sonoita, Arizona. She suffered severe head tramua and some small but significant brain damage. She’s functional but it changed her personality. She wasn’t showing off. She was making her living.
Christopher Reeve’s death was personal for me in some other ways. My dad is paralyzed from a spinal cord injury resulting from a blood clot during surgery. He’s a T-10 total for those that are familiar with that. Our whole family has watched Christopher Reeve’s progress and his activism for spinal cord injury victims. We also were aware of the reality that paralysis victims often have a much shorter lifespan for a variety of reasons. We know that in addition to my dad being in a wheelchair, probably for the rest of his life, that the rest of his life won’t be as long as it should have been. Christopher Reeve was killed by complications from bedsores. People who can walk around rarely have to worry about fatal boils. We’ve been vigilant about keeping my dad from developing bedsores and we are extremely careful about things like putting his shoes on. If his toes fold under he’ll never know it and cutting off circulation might result in an amputation or worse.
Oh, my dad’s been fighting a lymphoma that has no better hope than “mostly in remission” and the complications of paralysis make it more difficult for him to tolerate chemotherapy. Not totally related to the OP but I was on a roll.
I felt weird reading the Christopher Reeve thread (which one? The one I read, of course), because it just didn’t hit me that hard. I was pretty sad when I heard Johnny Ramone died, though, so I guess it’s just a matter of different tastes.
It’s very simple, we get sad when celebrities die because they give us something.
For example, my favorite film is Kill Bill. It is, in some ways, a silly movie, but it resonates with me. I’ve been betrayed, and hurt, and it is extemely cathartic to watch the Bride gain “bloody satisfaction”. Quentin Tarantino, Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Etc, gave me Kill Bill. Therefore I would be sad if any of them died. I wouldn’t cry for days or kill myself, but I would feel sadness. It’s not all about mindless worship of rich people.
Please try to be civil and respect the opinions of others on this subject. The only thing more personal than grief is love, and the line between the two is the thinnest line of all.
I’m an even worse person, calm kiwi. His septicaemia was caused by a wound to his hip inflicted by a machine he was using to keep his muscles from wasting so that when the cure finally does arrive …
Yes, I am sad that Reeve died. I felt like I was going to start crying while reading his obituary in The New York Times. Especially because of the way he died. A pressure sore got him. True, it was an infection of the sore, but if he didn’t have the sore, he wouldn’t have gotten the infection, etc. To go through everything that he went through, to work so hard, to be so committed to his cause, and then to have something like a pressure sore gets him. The world was robbed of a good person (regardless of how he might have been before his accident) because of a pressure sore.
Reeve had top of the line medical care, and a pressure sore still got him. I can only imagine how people in his condition without the same resources must fare. Pressure sores aren’t something that most people have to deal with, so it’s really hard to understand. It is a nagging thing, and they are extremely difficult to control. As you’re reading this, think about how much you’re moving. If your butt is numb, you can sense it and move. If you didn’t move, eventually the circulation to that tissue would be cut off, and the skin would breakdown. A pressure sore isn’t just like a cut, the breakdown works from the inside, which makes it difficult to heal.
After his accident Reeve could have given up, or he could have kept to himself, living his life out quietly. Instead he went therapy and was an activist. To paraphrase what a woman said in another article on SCI in the Times: “It’s hard to make something so difficult look easy.” I think Reeve did that.
He was an inspiration to me. I was paralyzed doing the silly, rich boy activity of driving. It was a single car accident, driver error. I didn’t need to be driving that day, but I was. It could have just as easily been anyone else, but I’m the one that wound up as a statistic. After my accident, I thought about suicide, just as Reeve, and I’m sure many others do. What keeps me going is knowing that I have a loving family and I wouldn’t want to hurt them. I still have use of my arms, so I don’t need the same level of care Reeve did, but I can tell you that my family would not hesitate to care for me if I needed it.
I don’t doubt that it was hard for Reeve and his family to have to deal with the increased medical attention, but it’s a sacrifice most people would make. People often tell me, “I couldn’t do it.” Referring to life in a wheelchair. I don’t remember thinking about it before my accident, but I probably had the same feelings. The human spirit is resilient, and I think most people will surprise themselves when faced with adversity. That’s not to say that this type of thing is easy, I’m just saying that it isn’t impossible either. Hopefully this puts to rest the notion of “At least his family doesn’t have to deal with the burden anymore.”
Seeing Reeve’s progress has motivated me as well. I’ll leave comments on the stem cell issue for another thread, except to say that I respect and appreciate Reeve’s work to advance research. Any doctor I have ever talked to told me that after a year I wouldn’t regain any function. I haven’t regained much more than a little feeling, but I haven’t listened to the doctors, when they gave me a perfectly good excuse to give up. Because Reeve was so driven, and started to see some results, small as they might have been, it has motivated me. I’m making sure that I stay healthy, and strong, so that some day, if the opportunity presents itself I will be able to walk again.
Why are people sad about Reeve? Obviously, because he was a public figure, and because of the tragedy associated with his situation. He was identifiable. He gave a “face” to SCI. People like me that are paralyzed could look at him and see that life wasn’t over, just different. I think that it also took a little of the edge off of SCI to people that aren’t paralyzed. A lot of my friends and family started paying attention to any news about Reeve and his progress after I was hurt. It’s like his work demystified my situation for them, if only slightly. I’m grateful for his efforts and I am sad that he is gone, both for his family’s loss, and that he won’t get to walk again.
Sorry to go off like that, but I got the sense that some people here might not have grasped the magnitude of the situation.
Then probably best not to get me started on the night Patrick Ewing’s jersey was retired:)
Let’s see . . . I cried when Cass Elliott, Gilda Radner, Divine and artist Richard Amsel died, because their work had given me much enjoyment over the years. Oh, and Janet Gaynor, too, as I’d thought she had recovered from the car accident she’d been in two years earlier.
(Celebs who were friends of mine don’t count)
Thanks, Dignan, for your “insider” post. It drives me nuts when people assume that a SCI is the end of the world and pity those who have sustained an injury, think they are better off dead, etc.
I have conversations that go like this all the time:
Stranger: What do you do?
Me: I am psychologist. I work with people who have recebntly had a spinal cord injury.
Stranger: I would want to die if that happened to me.
Me: No, you wouldn’t, you dumbass. You are stronger than you think. People with SCIs live happy, productive lives, as long as idiots aren’t pitying them.
That’s me, fighting ignorance. (Ok, a little less cranky, but I think the cranky bits.)
No, that the opinions about stem cell research from a scientist who has worked on paralysis issues for more than twenty years cannot get to the ears of power but a bunch of sick actors get to testify before congress and talk to presidential candidates. Del, btw, does not support the creation of new embryonic stem cell lines.