They say that celebrity deaths always come in clusters of three. I have no idea why this would be so, but it certainly does seem that way if you follow the Hollywood obituaries. A former girlfriend once called me morbid because I follow them. All I could tell her by way of explanation was that the deaths of people who’ve done work I care about matter to me. True, I may not know these people on any kind of genuine personal level, but I feel like I do know at least an aspect of them through their work, and I mourn the fact that there will be no new work from them once they are gone.

Few celebrity deaths, however, matter more to me than the one I learned about late this evening: Christopher Reeve, the man who was Superman for the children of my generation, died Sunday of heart failure, following a cardiac arrest and resulting coma the previous day. This one really hurts, kids…

I loved Superman: The Movie when I was a boy. It, along with Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, formed the mythological core of my psyche, the archetypal stories that shaped how I see the world. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that these three movies were, in a very real sense, like religion to me as I was growing up. I learned much about morality and the large, universal themes of the human story from them, and there are still moments today when I find that the easiest way to crystallize an idea for myself or others is to somehow relate it to one of these three films. And yet, unlike Star Wars and Raiders, I kind of lost Superman for a while. At some point, probably after one too many lame sequels had tainted the charms of the original film, I decided that Superman was kid’s stuff, a silly and frivolous movie that frankly embarrassed me a little. From what I understand, Christopher Reeve himself felt much the same way.

He spent years trying to distance himself from the tights and cape. He took roles in films and stageplays that were radically different from his best known work, occasionally playing very unsympathetic characters in an effort to put the Man of Steel behind him. Nothing worked. Like George Reeves before him, Christopher found that he could not escape his association with that one iconic role. He was Superman, whether he liked it or not.

The association with the role became even stronger after a 1995 riding accident left Reeve paralyzed from the neck down. Reeve responded to that devastating turn of events with an almost inhuman show of optimism and aplomb, and very few journalists could resist calling him “a real superman” at some point in their coverage of the story. That sentiment was (and still is) pretty cheesy, but only the most hard-hearted cynic could deny it. Christopher Reeve, who was by his own admission a talented but frequently shallow young man, was tempered by the ordeal of paralysis. Stranded in a chair, unable to move or even to breathe on his own for longer than minutes at a time, he grew into a genuinely remarkable human being, a process he related in two wonderful works of memoir, Still Me and Nothing is Impossible. He became an advocate for spinal cord research and catastrophic-injury insurance reform. He showed that it was possible to go on living with dignity and purpose even after the most horrific stroke of bad luck imaginable, and he never gave up believing that he would walk again, at least not publicly.

I’ve read both of his books and found myself incredibly moved by them. This man, who I’d once dismissed as a hack and a has-been, the star of a lame movie that had been cool when I was eight but was crap when I was eighteen, demonstrated courage that I frankly don’t know if I could find in myself under the same circumstances. When I read a couple of years ago that he was regaining some movement and sensation, I cried. I cried because it was so damn unfair that any person should call it a victory just to raise an index finger. I cried because, of all people, friggin’ Superman should not be stuck in a wheelchair. I cried because it looked as if Christopher Reeve’s optimism wasn’t delusional after all. The current research is very promising, and I believe that we will figure out a way to repair nerve damage before too much longer. It breaks my heart that Reeve didn’t last long enough for that day to come. (Realistically, however, he lasted much longer than he should have. It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a decade since his accident.)

In time, Christopher Reeve re-evaluated his signature role and came to realize that it’s not such a bad thing, being known as the Man of Steel. I myself rediscovered the first film in which he played the role when it was released on DVD on 2000, right around the time he was experiencing his index-finger breakthrough. Viewing it for the first time through adult eyes, I realized that there’s a lot more to the film and to the role than I’d been able to see only a few years earlier. Reeve is simply brilliant in a part that, in lesser hands, would be little more than an exercise in camp.

Let’s face it, Superman-the-character is something of a dork. Besides being physically invulnerable to just about any danger (a real challenge for any screenwriter), the guy is also as bland as they come, a real stiff. It would be an unbelievable challenge for any actor to make this guy into something remotely interesting, let alone human, but Reeve did it. He did it by taking the character seriously and refusing to give in to the temptation to play him as a joke. Coupled with a remarkably sensitive screenplay by Mario Puzo and Tom Mankiewicz, Reeve’s performance gives us a Superman that is anything but an untouchable Adonis. This Superman, as indestructible as any previous film incarnation, nevertheless has limitations — he can’t save everyone, and it wrecks him inside when he realizes it. He is emotionally vulnerable, if not physically so. The scream he delivers when Lois Lane dies in his arms is almost unwatchable — not because it’s cheesy or melodramatic, but because it’s so primal, so filled with rage and hurt and, for lack of a better word, impotence. When I was a kid, I didn’t understand the depth of emotion that Reeve packs into that moment. Now, as a grown-up who has lost loved ones, who has stood by powerless to interfere with their passing and felt unquenchable anger at a universe that doesn’t allow us to the option of saving the people who matter most to us, now I understand. It hurts to watch that scene. It brings tears to my eyes. It matters.

And that is why Christopher Reeve’s death matters to me. Because he was the heart and soul of a movie that I never realized was so important to me until I saw it again as a grown-up.

In my imagination, Reeve is free of that chair at last… he is free of all constraints, climbing high into the sky with a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his lips. He pauses to wave at us one last time before he rolls to his right and heads off across the curve of the Earth, just as the sun flares into view. He is now what he always was, and always will be… the one and only Superman…