This quote by Christopher Reeve is a perfect example of choosing hope rather than giving it up. He didn’t let his accident end his life, he chose to hope that one day he would walk again and he made great strides towards that goal. While he may not have achieved it he still goes down as a man that didn’t give up and achieved things that others would have deemed impossible. Hope can start small as long as you hold onto it, it grows like a snowball going down a hill. Hope builds confidence that things will turn out fine, which only makes it easier to hope some more.
Christopher Reeve is largely remembered for his flights across the screen while wearing a red cape and sporting a giant S across his chest. But it’s for his later off-screen work, while hoping to walk again, that solidified him as a hero.
His sensitive portrayal of Superman helped make the 1978 movie a blockbuster that set the stage for a wave of superhero movies. A 1995 horseback riding accident left Reeve paralyzed from the neck down. Even though doctors called the injury one of the worst possible, Reeve showed fortitude, resetting the expectations of what a quadriplegic could do, and he pledged he’d walk again one day.
When a tabloid reported that Reeve had begged his wife to let him die, Reeve responded with an angry denial. “I have not given up,” he wrote. “I will never give up.”
Reeve returned to Hollywood after his accident and made his directorial debut in 1997 with the critically acclaimed TV movie In the Gloaming, starring Glenn Close. During a 2017 fundraising appearance for Reeve’s foundation, a tearful Close shared her remembrance of his character.
“I miss Chris. He was a great man. He had more … he had more moral and mental fortitude than anyone I will ever know. It moved me to the core, and there were times when it even took my breath away. And he was courageous. Against the odds, he had the courage to hope for his dream, which is now our dream — a world of empty wheelchairs.”
Kenrick Vaz 