Somewhere in Heaven: The Remarkable Love Story of Dana and Christopher Reeve (24 page)

“There was definitely a celebratory quality in their raising of him,” said Dana’s sister Deborah. Dana and Will had “their own special thing. They were very tight. They had to stick together from a very early point. A lot of her life was being a hockey mom.” So strong was their mother-son bond, that even as he approached his eleventh birthday, Dana sang Will to sleep every night.

As much as he hated to leave Will behind even for a couple of weeks, Chris still had to work. Matthew had already graduated from Brown and was pursuing his own career as a documentary filmmaker, but Alexandra was still at Yale, and for Will, college was years in the future. As for his medical expenses, the Reeves’ three

health insurance policies—each of which had a $1 million cap— were scheduled to run out in 2005. While he shrugged off the fi- nancial disaster that loomed on the horizon (“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”), Chris knew he had to keep working.

That summer, Chris, accompanied by Dana, Will, and his med- ical support team, arrived in New Orleans to begin directing
The Brooke Ellison Story
in sweltering one-hundred-degree heat. Ac- cording to Lacey Chabert, the actress who portrayed Ellison in the film, Chris “was right on top of every little detail. There were ob- vious physical limitations, but there were no creative limitations.” “He worked incredible hours in this unbelievable, brutal heat,” recalled Ellison, who spent time on the set. “It was truly a labor

of love.”

One evening, Ellison and her family joined Dana, Chris, and Will for dinner at a New Orleans restaurant. “People were com- ing up to the table and snapping their pictures while they ate,” Ellison said, “but Chris and Dana didn’t seem bothered at all. They were completely gracious, relaxed and natural. The whole family was—radiant.”

By the time he returned to New York, Chris had developed an- other infection, this time in his chest, and was by his own admis- sion “in constant pain.” It was around this time that his old friend and self-described consigliere Peter Kiernan, who also served as vice chairman of the Christopher Reeve Foundation, asked him what his plans were for the foundation in the event of his death. “You’re a powerful guy,” Kiernan told him. “You’ll pull through like you always do, but let’s talk about what happens to the foun- dation if you die. This organization is like the solar system with you at its center. What happens when the sun goes out?”

Chris took only a few moments to answer. “Look,” he told Kiernan, “if something happens to me, Dana will definitely take on a bigger role. But I want you to help her run things.”

“Chris was really a civil rights leader,” Kiernan said. “The fifty million disabled people in this country cried out for what every civil rights movement cries out for—a voice. Chris was that voice. What does a movement do without its Gandhi?”

Dana waited for the infection to subside before leaving for California, where she was appearing in the Broadway-bound play
Brooklyn Boy.
She planned on returning every “actor’s week- end”—Sunday through Tuesday—and was happy that Will and Chris could “really bond” in her absence—“You know, when- ever I’m gone it’s dad and son time.”

Dana flew home for Chris’s fifty-second birthday on Septem- ber 25, and watched with Will, Alexandra, and Chris’s mother, Barbara, as the birthday boy was presented with his “cake”—ac- tually a bowl of the junket (milk pudding set with rennet) that had been one of Chris’s favorite foods as a small child. Now, be- cause of his recent setbacks, it was one of the few foods he was capable of digesting.

Chris paused for dramatic effect, and then summoned all his breath to blow out the single birthday candle. “It may not sound like much,” Barbara recalled, “but when you are on a ventilator, it takes great effort.”

Two days later, Chris met with the production team for his animated film,
Everyone’s Hero.
“He was extremely excited about it and very involved,” said producer Ron Tippe. “Even when we asked if he wanted to take a break, he said, ‘No, let’s keep going.’ ” On October 5, Chris appeared at a fund-raiser for the Reha-

bilitation Institute of Chicago. He met with doctors and patients, and promised that a cure for paralysis was near. “He electrified the crowd,” said the institute’s medical director, Dr. Elliot Roth. After the audience gave him a standing ovation, a tenor sang “The Impossible Dream.”

Chris had shown no sign of illness or fatigue during his trip to Chicago. But the day after he returned to Bedford, nurses noticed that a sore on his lower back had become infected. For Chris, who had been fighting methicillan-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) for months, this meant heavier doses of the antibiotics he was already taking.

Dana knew that Chris pushed himself too hard, but she also trusted his judgment. No one knew his medical condition— what worked and what didn’t—better than Chris. When she checked in with him on the phone, they did not dwell on this latest infection or what he was doing to treat it. Instead, she and Chris talked about the upcoming premiere of his film
The Brooke Ellison Story
at Manhattan’s Lincoln Center. Dana also listened to Chris’s plans to attend their son’s hockey game and then spend the evening watching a Yankees–Minnesota Twins game on TV.

“Ah, more bonding,” she said. “Sounds perfect.”

“Yes,” Chris replied before saying good-bye to Dana for the last time. “Perfect.”

—Dana

—Robin Williams

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he pond Chris loved to gaze at for hours glistened in the pale yellow light of mid-October. While a string quartet played his favorite pieces by Mozart and Brahms, family and a few friends walked to the table that had been set up in the garden of the Bedford house. Each paused to place a single flower before a

framed photo of Chris.

“It was one of the most beautiful New England days,” Robin Williams said, “and leaves were turning and the wind’s blowing and you’re going, ‘It feels like he’s here, and that’s a great thing.’ There was a spirit of sadness but there’s also a spirit of great joy all of a sudden.”

When the service was over, the Reeve offspring began play- ing football. “It’s what happens,” Williams said. “Life goes on but that’s what he’d want, too.”

Two weeks later, nine hundred invited guests crammed into

the Juilliard Theater at Lincoln Center for a memorial tribute to Christopher Reeve. Glenn Close (“He is an irreplaceable force of nature. I will mourn him and celebrate him for the rest of my life.” ), Meryl Streep (“I thought of him all the time—when I had to go to work and get off my whiney-hiney, I thought of Christopher who never whined.”), Robert Kennedy, Jr., and Iowa Senator Tom Harkin were among the many who spoke.

Will also came out onstage, and, speaking in a clear voice, said that his father “never faked it” and that he “lived to love.” He re- called their last day together when Chris cheered him on at his hockey match, how they watched a Yankee game together, and how, when he kissed his father before going to bed, he had no way of knowing “it was the last time I would see him conscious.” There was audible sobbing in the audience during Will’s re- marks, which swelled as Dana spoke not only of her husband’s courage and compassion, but of the little things that made him human. Among his quirks was to reply to “Hello” with “Hello to you,” and “Good-bye” with “Good-bye to you.” He “did not suf- fer fools gladly,” she said, remembering the time they had gone to a play and the moment afterward when he announced: “Every- body can relax, the worst actor in the world has been identified.” She went on to speak of his love for his nurses and aides, of his “ironclad loyalty” to his friends, of the boundless pride he had for all three of his children. “I made a vow to Chris when we mar- ried that I would love him and I would be with him in sickness and in health,” she concluded in a voice now choked with emo- tion. “And I did OK with that. But there’s another vow that I need to amend today. I promised to love, honor, and cherish him until

death did us part.

“Well, I can’t do that,” she went on, “because I will love, honor, and cherish him forever. Good-bye to you!” With that, Dana pulled away from the podium and fled the stage in tears. Chris had, in fact, told Dana that when the time came, he wanted a party rather than a memorial service. For that, Dana said, she “apologized to his spirit. I said, ‘I don’t really much feel

like having a party.’ ”

Yet she did go out of her way to invite the health care pro- fessionals who had cared for her husband over the years, and sought them out at the memorial service. “She made certain to come up to us and thank us personally,” Kessler’s Steve Kirshblum said. “She remembered the name of every doctor and nurse and aide. Dana was a total class act.”

Kirshblum could also see that Will’s speech had taken Dana by surprise. “Will really blew her away,” he said. “For a young man to have such poise and courage—it was a credit to both his mom and his dad.” Another guest, Brooke Ellison, agreed: “Will is pre- cocious,” she said. “Intimidatingly so. When you think of all he’d already been through . . .”

Not even Dana had been prepared for the outpouring of grief that followed news of Chris’s death. George W. Bush and his op- ponent John Kerry put aside their bitter campaign for the White House to pay tribute to the man revered by millions around the globe. “Laura and I are saddened,” said President Bush, who praised Chris as “an example of personal courage, optimism, and self-determination.” Kerry lauded Chris as a “tireless champion for the disabled” who was “able to make great strides toward a cure without ever leaving his wheelchair.”

In the following days and weeks, there would be questions

concerning the exact cause of Chris’s unexpected death. But Dana did not request an autopsy. “I knew there was no reason,” she explained. “He had the best care. The nurses and doctors had always got him through. If his body was failing, his body was fail- ing.” Chris’s body was cremated, and his ashes scattered by the family.