Although I did not personally know Dana or Christopher Reeve, their sad deaths coming one after another makes me feel that we have lost members of our own family.The devotion of Dana to Chris during his own trial, and her cheerful acceptance of her fight with cancer should be a parable of our time.
I was talking to my eldest daughter today about the Reeves.She had lost a close friend last year to breast cancer and I was looking for someone who can tell me what makes these people so special.My daughter had become a Buddhist ten years ago and she told me something I thought might resonate with the trib people.
My daughter told me that unlike Western religious thought, Buddhist tenet looks at life as a continuous source of suffering.By suffering they do not mean actual physical pain and suffering but a psychic and spiritual suffering of the type Thoreau meant when he talked about the “lives of quiet desperation” we lead.
Regardless of our station in life, we all feel this to some extent.This is why the first act that Buddhist thought recommends is compassion for all human beings, even our so called enemies. Once we realize we all experience the same pain brought on by our very living, it is possible to make the universal connection.
Dana had an instinctive sense of the suffering of others and by acting with compassion she ennobled our lives.In my book Dana is a heroine for the ages.
May she rest in peace with Christopher.