I don’t remember much about September 4, 1990. It was the first day of my senior year in high school, in the DC suburbs, and I do have some vague memories of meeting some of my teachers for the first time, but that’s about it. I certainly had no idea that, about 250 miles to my north on Long Island, a family I didn’t (and still don’t) know would never be able to forget anything about that day.
I do remember the day I learned about that, though. It was almost exactly a decade later, in June 2000. I was halfway through my master’s degree and spending the summer on campus working at the rare book library. I happened to have the TV on while getting ready for work, and I chanced to overhear a story on some morning news program (I’m guessing either Today or Good Morning America) about Brooke Ellison, the first quadriplegic to graduate from Harvard.
We all do stupid things when we’re kids. You did. I did. Brooke Ellison did, on September 4, 1990. On her way home from her first day of seventh grade, she tried to run across a highway and got hit by a car. She survived, but was paralyzed from the neck down, unable to even breathe on her own. As I watched the news about her, I couldn’t help but reflect on my own memories of that long-ago first day of school. I was your average angst-ridden suburban teenager, hating my life and having no idea just how easy I really had it. Here was someone who did know, because she had once had it just about as good as I did and had lost nearly everything – except her intelligence and the love of her family. Someone who stared death in the face at age 11, and death blinked. Someone who had every reason to give up on life…and instead earned a degree from Harvard in cognitive neuroscience.
Now, I’m not here to praise Harvard too much for what amounts to simply complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act (and I suppose I should acknowledge here that I went to Yale). If anyone besides Brooke Ellison deserves praise for her accomplishment, it’s her mother, Jean Ellison, who was with her throughout those four years. As Ellison said at her commencement speech, “My mother has been with me, every hour of every day…I would not be here if it weren’t for my mother. None of us has escaped the love and caring of others.”
She wasn’t done with Harvard yet. In 2004 she earned a master’s in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, then went on to earn a PhD in sociology from Stony Brook University in 2012 and become an associate professor there. Along the way, she ran for New York State Senate in 2006. That campaign was notable for her Republican opponent running an ad with a constituent who talked about her love of golf, although she had “a huge handicap”. Stay classy, Republicans.
She also published two books about her experience, the first of which was made into a TV movie directed by Christopher Reeve (immediately before his passing). In 2014 she was elected as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader; in 2017 she joined the board of directors of the New York Civil Liberties Union. She used all these platforms and others to be a tireless advocate for stem cell research. That “and others” includes Daily Kos, where she published a diary called “Stem Cell Research and False Dichotomies” in August 2010.
I never met Dr. Ellison, though I was fortunate enough to have the chance to interact with her on that diary. But I also never stopped following her and being as inspired by her example as I was awestruck with her accomplishments. I woke up this morning and read on Facebook that she died last night. No word yet on just what happened, but I wouldn’t want to dwell on that anyway. What does matter is that her example will live forever, and that we can all carry on her fights – for stem cell research, for the rights of the disabled, and most of all, for everyone to never give up. She sure as heck never did.
All I can think of to close this diary is what I told her in my comment on that diary back in 2010: “Next time I find myself thinking there's nothing I can do about something, I promise to think of this diary and of you.” Always have, always will!