RIP: Dana Reeve

Death comes in three's. I just learned that Dana Reeve has passed away.

Dana Reeve, who won worldwide admiration for her devotion to her "Superman" husband, Christopher Reeve, through his decade of near-total paralysis, has died of lung cancer at the age of 44.

Reeve, a singer-actress who gave up some of her own career to be one of the nation's best-known caregivers, died late Monday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Medical Center, said Kathy Lewis, president of the Christopher Reeve Foundation.

Reeve had succeeded her husband as chair of the foundation, which funded research into spinal-cord paralysis cures. She announced in August that, while she wasn't a smoker, she had been diagnosed with lung cancer.[...]

A year ago, she won a Mother of the Year award from the American Cancer Society. A society vice president, Dr. Michael Thun, said Reeve "has shown strength and courage in the face of tremendous adversity." Doctors say 1 in 5 women diagnosed with the disease never lit a cigarette.

In addition to her son and step-children, she is survived by her father, Dr. Charles Morosini, and sisters Deborah Morosini and Adrienne Morosini Heilman.