I'm not the angry, rebellious child that I was. You can remain a child for a long time. I certainly did. I was a slow learner.

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'm not the angry, rebellious child that I was. You can remain a child for a long time. I certainly did. I was a slow learner.

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.

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.

I had this odd sibling rivalry with America.

I grew up in this era where your parents' friends were all called aunt and uncle. And then I had an aunt and an aunt. We saw them on holidays and other times. We never talked about it, but I just understood that they were a couple.