On March 20th and May 22nd, 2023, Elaine Miller-Karas interviewed Dr. Brooke Ellison. Brooke died on February 4, 2024. We are rebroadcasting this episode in tribute to her life, her wisdom, and her brilliance. We are acknowledging her family and all the love and support they gave her during her short lifetime. After a nearly fatal run-in with a car at age 11 that left her paralyzed from the neck down and unable to breathe on her own, Brooke Ellison went on to graduate from Harvard, write a memoir, earn master’s and doctoral degrees, and teach policy and ethics as a tenured professor—all the while navigating the world as a woman with ventilator-dependent quadriplegia. Christopher Reeve's last directorial work prior to his death was the Brooke Ellison Story, which chronicled a part of her life.

Brooke shared her perspectives and her wisdom about disability and life. In her book, “Look Both Ways,” published before her death, Brooke refused to let us look away. She tears off the cloak of invisibility around disability not only to champion the rights of the blind or the mobility-impaired but to make a far more earth-shattering claim: what she’s experienced—having to relearn how to live—differs from what every human being endures only in a matter of degree. We are more alike than we are willing to see. Brooke’s transformation was “an amplified version of the kinds of adjustments we all need to make when we have undergone an unexpected and, often, undesired change in our lives.” She was only 44 and she lived an amazing life.