All is not always as it appears.
Take the case of Christopher and Dana Reeve. One look would tell you that they were a golden couple, he of the chiseled movie star looks, she the tall striking beauty with a separate career as actress and producer.
Thirteen years ago they had a son, their health and two growing careers with money and fame enough for both.
They were a golden couple, indeed.
That fragile halo shattered in May of 1995 when Chris Reeve was thrown from a horse in Virginia. It was a fall that Superman would have survived easily but Reeve, the actor who played the superhero, proved that he was all too human.
The spill left him a permanent quadriplegic.
It was hard to watch what was left of the once strapping young athlete. It was surprising to watch his wife, a woman who quickly proved that she was not a trophy, nor a gold digger, nor a shrinking violet, either.
In the next decade it was hard to find a picture of Christopher Reeve where his wife wasn’t at his side.
She founded a foundation in her husband’s name that worked to find answers for spinal chord injuries, holding out hope that technology could outpace the toll the injuries were taking on Christopher’s body.
It was a race the family would lose, as Reeve died of heart failure in October of 2004.
Several months later Dana Reeve would lose her mother to natural causes.
Surely that was enough for one woman working to continue her foundation work and raise what was by then an 11-year old son.
But tragedy wasn’t through with Dana Reeve. In August of 2005 she announced that she had been diagnosed with lung cancer, a major surprise given that she didn’t smoke.
What followed was seven months of aggressive chemotherapy and radiation, but the disease proved to be too strong.
Dana Reeve died this week at the age of 44, leaving behind her 13-year old son and a legacy of courage and loyalty and faith that belied the stereotype that her beauty and position would encourage.
All may not always be as it appears, but Christopher and Dana Reeve were a golden couple, untarnished by what life threw their way.
In their case, the gold wasn’t to be found in looks, or movies, or money or fame.