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Christopher Reeve is an amazing man! A tragedy like this would've crushed most people, and it almost did him, but, he turned it into a positive. After reading his book, all my problems seemed so small and trivial. It's taught me to appreciate all I have, and to not take life for granted, and, no matter what cards are dealt me, life is worth living, and you can make a difference in the lives of people you don't even know. Chris, you're a God send. Love you!
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I love this book. It shows that tremendous healing can take place if we simply learn how to focus our minds and believe.
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I FOUND THIS BOOK GAVE ME A MUCH BETTER INSIGHT TO THE SEVERE LIMITATIONS AND STRUGGLES THAT OCCUR WITH THIS HORRIBLE TYPE OF INJURY,I BELIEVE MANY WOULD RATHER JUST DIE. I WISHED THERE WAS MORE IN THIS BOOK ABOUT HIS OWN INTIMATE THOUGHTS AND HIS WORST FEARS ABOUT THE FUTURE, LESS ON HIS HOLLYWOOD CAREER, THAT PART SEEMED SO TRIVIAL TO WHAT THIS BOOK WAS SUPPOSE TO BE ABOUT.
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Anyone growing up during a time when the Superman movies were the towering box office successes they were, likely came to view Christopher Reeve as a hero. At least at the time, I did. My own view changed as I grew older and realized that Christopher Reeve was just like everyone else and that my original perception of him as a hero was one merely mistakenly made by associating him with the fictional character he portrayed in those movies.As Reeve's career evolved, I thought much less of him as an actor as one movie or show after another was never on the par of the Superman trilogy. News stories about him, particularly when he started living in New York City, gave me the impression of that Reeve was far too impressed with himself. I thought him to be snobbish and egotistical -- not particularly attractive qualities in a person. Certainly not deserved based on his fame as Superman.For the most part Reeve faded from my mind as anyone significant in show business as time went on. Despite all this, when Reeve fell from his horse over the Memorial Day weekend in 1995, I found myself startled by the accident. 'How could this happen to Superman?' was my most immediate reaction.My interest in Reeve continued following his initial and the clearly double-edged miraculousness of his survival of the accident. The pictures of him provided by the media sitting on the lawn of the rehabilitation center in New Jersey left me saddened for a life, I quickly assumed, was essentially "lost." I couldn't, probably still cannot, fathom the loss Christopher Reeve has experienced.When I saw his book on the bookstore shelves, I quickly purchased a copy -- wanting to know more. I felt a need to better understand this man and what he had gone through.As I read Reeve's book. I experienced an entire range of emotions from incredible sympathy for him, ultimately to arrive at a point where this man, has earned, in at least my estimation, the status of "hero." What he has endured to earn such a descriptor continues to be something beyond my complete ability to comprehend. This is a story of a famous man, physically active -- perhaps to the extreme -- being suddenly and literally felled and paralyzed to the point of near complete incapacitation and a transition from a very independent person to one who now must live with a total dependence on others. It is a story that tells the reader of Reeve's understandable questioning whether life was really worth living any longer. In context, a totally appropriate dilemma. I somehow believe it would be easier to comprehend the conclusion as a negative one than that which Christopher Reeve has arrived at. Yes! Yes to life -- no matter the challenges he must live with and the manner in which his former life has been so irrevocably changed.In telling his story, I come to better understand probably what I earlier misunderstood about him. Christopher Reeve is a highly sensitive human being -- "not the man of steel" -- and what I mistook for snobbishness and for egotism were really his manner of attempting to distance himself from life in the face of a camera at all times -- whether on or off stage. The distance I misread seems now more likely Reeve's somewhat reserved manner, his sensitivity, his intelligence and a significant introspectiveness that he did not wish to share with everyone.Reeve's story is at once reluctant (the very private sensitive man trying desperately to continue to maintain some degree of his privacy,) yet ultimately brutally honest -- right down to the manner by which his bowels are moved. Yet this time, despite sounding somewhat clinical at times, Christopher Reeve, the sensitive, intelligent, feeling human being, comes loudly through. His courage, love of family, humility and gratitude speak to the reader even during those times when he attempts to retreat to the protective cover of distance and intellectualism. This is the story of a man who has gone through every range of emotion on the continuum. It is the story of feelings sweeping back and forth across the pendulum between hope and despair. Ultimately, Reeve cannot in any way disguise that through the bad days, the times of anger, the challenges of such tremendous dependency, that He Chooses Life -- a life that he wants to do as much with as possible, for the sake of himself, his family and quite importantly, for other people who are less visible or fortunate, who face the same kinds of injury and live an even greater challenge than he does because they do not have the financial means for the kind of paid support he is able to acquire. Ultimately, this is the story of one human being, who's life has done a 360 degree turn through a freak accident. That human being, Christopher Reeve, makes the choice in the aftermath to take the journey on the road he never would have chosen given a choice. And, it is clear, it will be a life lived to the very best of his ability. This is indeed a hero's story -- even though it is a heroism I am certain Christopher Reeve would have bypassed in less than a second if given a choice -- as would I and I am sure every other reader. As I concluded the book, while tremendously inspired by Christopher Reeve and his family, I closed the back cover lost in my own introspection. How much a fragile gift my life is... questioning whether I respect and am regularly enough conscious and respectful of that life, it's fragility and it's gift. In light of Christopher Reeve's story, I much more appreciate, that I must make better efforts at gratitude and focused living in order to be much more respectful of all that I have been given, as fragile as it may be. There is a sense that I, just as Christopher Reeve, have no idea what the next second of my existence will bring so I better make the best of this one. Thank you Chris for sharing a story where you clearly would have preferred not to be the teller. Thank you for your example of choosing to live life on the terms it is granted to you, rather than on those that you perhaps once believed you could dictate. Thank you for reminding me that these are the very things I must be mindful of as I take life as it comes. May I always have enough respect for my God to answer his challenges in the courageous way you have!
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Christopher Reeve is an extrodinary human being. Through his book "Still Me" he has expressed what it means to have a life, and what it means to live a life. The happy moments of victory paid their price as the ability to move everybody part from the neck down were stripped from him. Though his body is unable to feel the pain of his suffering, Mr. Reeves's mind overcomes any obstacle that passes before him. This is an extraordinary book that touches the heart along with the mind and is an avid reminder that we are not invinciible.
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