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On National Public Radio there was
a recent
interview of actor Christopher Reeve,
the
man who portrayed Superman in the movies
so many years ago. In 1995, he had
a tragic
horseback riding accident which left
him
a quadriplegic, his spinal cord severed
at
the skull. After the cord was reattached,
he looked at his wife and whispered,
"Maybe
we should let me go."
Now, after years of physical therapy,
experimental
drug treatments and inner work, he
is still
in his state-of-the-art wheelchair,
and has
gained an acceptance of his situation.
His
goal was to be walking by his 50th
birthday
in September, 2002. He is not walking,
but
has movement of over 20% of his body,
most
of it in his fingers and wrist, and
he can
extend his arms and legs. His doctors
are
quite astonished. He said, "I
don't
think my doctor would have been more
surprised
if I had just walked on water."
He goes
on and off the ventilator, as much
as 90
minutes at a time, which is amazing
in itself.
This shows that his diaphragm is working,
and that means there is a chance he
may get
off it all together.
Christopher Reeve was a very active
person
before the accident, now he is an athlete
stuck in a chair. You can imagine what
that
does to someone. All he can do is watch
and
remember. After the accident, he had
to be
turned in bed every 2 hours. He had
to have
someone shift his weight in the chair
every
30 minutes to take the pressure off
the spine.
This sudden change in lifestyle presented
an awesome challenge, and he rises
to it
every day in the most positive way.
Along with the feelings that accompany
a
major change like this, a healing crisis
does amazing things. This experience
opened
up his inner world: "Of necessity,
I
have discovered things within the mind
or
within the spirit…that would not have
been
known to me without the accident."
He
writes that he was "forced to
become
a serious student of myself."
He continues:
"After I was injured I had to
learn
patience. I had to learn forgiveness
of myself…I
thought that when I had the accident
that
I had done the unthinkable. I had not
only
injured myself, I had injured those
around
me because they would be affected…it
was
not my own mess, but a mess for everybody."
But his family was right there rallying
behind
him. He "learned a lot about peace
and
patience, and being as opposed to doing."
He also had two near-death experiences,
as
he relates: "….one when I was
injured,
and the other one was because of a
reaction
to a drug in rehab where I went into
anaphylactic
shock, where I flatlined briefly. I
literally
had an out-of-body experience."
Out-of-body experiences are actually
a normal
occurrence when someone is in between
the
waking and sleeping state, but especially
in near-death situations, where the
person
is revived after having seemed to have
technically
died.
These experiences serve to awaken us
to the
spiritual side of life, a life that
Reeve
may have overlooked before the accident.
He states: "In the past, I would
have
been very cynical about these things.
But
it is true. I vividly remember being
up on
the ceiling looking down at a the people
working on me and feeling that I was
slipping
away. I felt that there was the real
possibility
of slipping away until they brought
me back
and I suddenly re-entered my body."
And how does he feel about slipping
away?
He said, it is like drowning: "It
was
dangerously welcome. At first you fight,
and then gradually you resign and sort
of
let yourself go. I remember being on
the
border. The last thing that I said
before
they brought me back was, 'I'm sorry,
I have
to go now…' All the while I was fighting,
and then I just couldn't do it any
more.
I just thought, what a relief it would
be
not to have to fight so hard any more.
I
remember just letting go, just a kind
of
acceptance. Later when everything stabilized
I was so, so thankful. I had my family
around
me. It wasn't my time to go and I realized
just how fragile our existence is and
how
much love really means."
Christopher truly is a Superman. As
he finds
strength and spirituality, his celebrity
status radiates this to all others
who look
on; others who seek their inner strength;
others who see that they too can work
through
life's difficulties with the fortitude
of
spirit, open heart and open mind that
he
displays daily. Christopher, don't
slip away
just yet.
[ Note: Christopher Reeve passed away
on
October 10th, 2004 from cardiac arrest.
His
wife followed him closely with her
untimely
death from cancer in 2006.]
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