After September 11, I got to understand a little bit of his deep love for this country.
America had taken my father from me. And over most of the years of his illness, I gradually started feeling this support system from this country who-people grieving along with us.
And as far as false hope, there is no such thing. There is only hope or the absence of hope-nothing else.
Christopher Reeve understood that... everything begins with hope. His vision of walking again, his belief that he would be able to in his lifetime, towered over his broken body.
Even if the Bush Administration had flung open the gates to stem-cell research years ago, we would not be at the point of offering treatment today. Christopher Reeve would still have been taken from us. But we would be closer.
I did what most writers do when something happens that's overwhelming, fascinating, moving, all of that. I didn't know what else to do about it except write about it.
I felt that the best I could do for my father, and the best I could do for myself, and my mother and my family was to stay open to the experience, and learn whatever I could at every step of the way as it was going on.
I had this odd sibling rivalry with America.
I heard his stories about ice skating as a kid along this river, that went on for miles, and miles and miles, and in winter when the river had frozen.
I needed him as a citizen of this country and that we as a country needed him. Because he would have known what to say to bring us some comfort.
I speak for many others when I say that none of us believe a cure is just around the corner. We believe it's around a very wide bend.
I think maybe whatever you've gone through in your life, or if you're happy with where you get to, then it's all-it's worth it.
It seemed to me that you couldn't give a blueprint for a disease like Alzheimer's.
Laura Bush went on national television during the week of my father's funeral and spoke out against embryonic stem cell research, pointing out that where Alzheimer's is concerned, we don't have proof that stem-cell treatment would be effective.
My father started growing very quiet as Alzheimer's started claiming more of him. The early stages of Alzheimer's are the hardest because that person is aware that they're losing awareness. And I think that that's why my father started growing more and more quiet.
People who never met Christopher Reeve were emboldened by his crusade; they were infused with faith and confidence, where before things had looked terribly bleak.
Some people, when they die, leave so much life behind that we wonder how they did it.
The memories stayed with him for so long, and stayed vivid. And it didn't matter to me that he'd already repeated that before. I could hear it forever.
The memories that I have are mostly at our old ranch, out in Agoura. We used to go out there every Saturday. I can smell the oak trees. I can see it so clearly.
You know, if you hang around this earth long enough you really see how things come full circle.
If this be the cause of my resignation, I will feel that I have done that which is right and just to myself and my people.
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