For years, millions believed him to be indestructible. They had seen him fly, stop bullets, hold up the planet with one hand. Christopher Reeve was Superman.
Until a horse changed everything.
On May 27, 1995, at an equestrian competition in Virginia, Reeve fell headfirst and fractured the first two vertebrae in his neck. The man who had embodied the most powerful being in the universe was left paralyzed from the neck down, unable to move an arm or breathe without the help of a machine.
In his hospital bed, shattered inside, he whispered to his wife what many would have kept silent: that maybe it would be best to let him go.
And then Dana spoke.
Without hesitating for a second, she looked him in the eyes and said the words he would forever call “the ones that saved my life”: “You are still you. And I love you.”
From that day on, she never left his side. She became his nurse, his voice, his driving force. She raised their son while advancing an enormous cause: together they built a foundation to fund spinal cord injury research and restore hope to thousands of families.
The real Superman in this story did not wear a cape. She pushed a wheelchair and smiled every morning so that he would have a reason to keep going.
Christopher died on October 10, 2004, at 52 years old. He lived nine years longer than anyone imagined that night in the hospital, sustained in large part by those words.
But life had one final blow in store. Just seventeen months later, Dana — who had never smoked — died of lung cancer, at 44. As if her heart, after holding everything together, could no longer find a way to beat without him.
The world remembers the hero in the red cape. The greatest lesson, however, was left by her: true love does not kneel before misfortune. It stays. Even when it hurts, even when it costs an entire lifetime.
Dana, the woman who reminded Superman that he was still himself. 💙