In May 2004, a woman named Dana Reeve delivered a commencement speech at her alma mater, Middlebury College in Vermont, where she and her husband were being awarded honorary degrees. It was an upbeat speech. There was nothing unusual about that. Commencement speeches are supposed to be upbeat. Most of the time, they are also mind-numbingly boring. Ms. Reeve's was riveting -- not so much for what she said as for the rare authority with which she said it. We were reminded of her words, and of her remarkable optimism and courage, last week on hearing the news of her death of lung cancer at age 44.

Here is part of what Ms. Reeve told the newly minted graduates: "The one thing I can guarantee you can expect in life is that you will experience the thoroughly unexpected." Here is how she had learned that: Ms. Reeve's husband was Christopher Reeve, the actor-turned-activist who had been left a quadriplegic after a fall from a horse nine years earlier. The accident was a lightning strike that utterly transformed the couple's lives.

Wealthy and well-connected as the Reeves were, they could easily have slipped out of the public eye after the accident to concentrate on his rehabilitation. Or she could have just quietly left him. Instead, while he never slackened in his rehab efforts, Mr. Reeve also developed a much broader focus, campaigning tirelessly for research that might lead to a cure for paralysis, whether caused by spinal cord injuries like his or by central nervous system disorders. And Ms. Reeve, far from giving in to despair, put her own career as a singer and actress on hold to join him in that effort.