Dana Reeve’s strength shows that we all can matter

When I learned that Dana Reeve, the widow of Christopher Reeve, had died, the words of another woman were still ringing in my ears.

Just the night before Reese Witherspoon had accepted the Academy Award for best actress for her portrayal of June Carter Cash in “Walk the Line.” She clutched the statue and, trying to explain what drives her in both her personal and professional lives, quoted Cash by saying, “I’m just trying to matter.”

I was arrested by that phrase. I could easily imagine the words wrapped in Cash’s twangy drawl. They captured precisely what most of us feel: We all want to matter. We want to be important to our families and friends; to the world around us.

Reeve, a woman who didn’t smoke, died of lung cancer at the age of 44.

She was a singer and an actress. She was a mother. But she was best known for being the devoted wife of Christopher.

After a fall from a horse left Christopher Reeve unable to breathe on his own and he faced the severity of his injuries, he gave his wife an out. “Maybe we should let me go,” he said to her.

Can you imagine hearing those words from someone you love? I can’t.

Reeve’s simple reply was that she was there for the long haul. And for the rest of his life she kept that promise. She cared for him. She became his champion. She was at his side, encouraging, supporting and nurturing.

She mattered.

When he died she made it clear that, through the Christopher Reeve Foundation, she would continue his drive to search for a way to overcome spinal cord injuries.

Reeve’s death following so soon after that of her husband is doubly tragic. Like her husband, she died young. She had a 13-year-old son. She had a career she wanted to revive. She had a mission.

She still wanted to matter.

Cash, the woman’s whose axiom Witherspoon has adopted as her own, made an indelible footprint in American music. And she forever changed her husband as well. Their devotion to one another was the stuff of legend, and Johnny Cash never left any doubt that it was her love that had saved him.

She mattered.

Witherspoon is a beautiful young woman. She is married and has two children. She is financially secure, and now she has the most coveted award in her profession. By any measure she is wildly successful.

But she made it clear she’s not going to stand still. She’s still trying to matter.

I’m not a singer like Cash. Or a woman who has had to shoulder life and death responsibilities like Reeve. I’m not a movie star like Witherspoon. But, like them, I know how it feels to want to matter. It’s the basic drive in all of us. We want to be vital to those we love, to our work and to the world. Our contributions don’t have to be epic. We don’t have to get the big awards or go down in history.

We just want to matter.

In the months before her death, when asked how she kept up her spirits even as she underwent treatment for cancer, Reeve replied, “I had a good model.”

And that’s what she has become for the rest of us. Her life was too short, and her work was unfinished, but she accomplished something big.

She mattered.