"It just so happened after I woke up, after 36 days in my coma, I looked up at the TV and saw that Dana had passed away ... I couldn’t stop crying,” ABC reporter and shrapnel survivor Bob Woodruff said as he and his wife, Lee, accepted the Christopher Reeve Spirit of Courage Award at the Marriott Marquis. The gala, A Magical Evening, raised a whopping $2.5 mil for the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.

Partaking in the magic: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Robin Williams, Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters, David Blaine, Richard Belzer, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Asked what magical powers he would like to possess, Williams said he’d boost everyone’s IQ by 30 points. “We’re only one species, and we don’t want to bottom out,” he explained. On the other hand, increased intelligence may bump up our frustration levels, for no matter how much brain power we may possess, chances are we’d still be at a loss to
comprehend the vagaries of life, as so poignantly exemplified by the fates of Dana and Christopher Reeve.

Streep, after receiving the Dana Reeve Hope Award, said, “I feel like I’m standing in light that they cast.”

The foundation’s mission is to improve the quality of life for those with paralysis and ultimately to find a cure for spinal cord injuries.

“We will make progress and maybe not even have to have this event because we’ve made so much progress,” 16-year-old Will Reeve declared, seconded by his siblings Alexandra and Mathew. There’s no shortage of Reeves to carry on the good fight.