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HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES Profile in courage (and loyalty) By Ken Gewertz
It is indicative of Brooke Ellison’s perspective on life that when she talks about the worst thing that ever happened to her, she emphasizes what went right rather than what went wrong.
In 1990, on her first day of seventh grade, Ellison was struck by a car on her way home from school. The accident left her paralyzed from the neck down, unable even to breathe on her own. But when she looks back on that day, what she sees are the circumstances that made it possible for her to survive. "The place where the accident happened was right across the street from a fire house and about 100 feet from a hospital. There were EMTs and police right nearby, and that saved my life." Where others might see the cruelty of a random, indifferent universe, Ellison sees the hand of Providence, which left her physically disabled, but with a fully functioning mind and heart. A Catholic who feels her faith was strengthened by the accident, she speaks of the gifts that living as a quadriplegic has bestowed on her. "My situation has given me a different perspective on life. I see things with different eyes. I see the value in things that are sometimes overlooked by other people – having family and friends, being able to appreciate a beautiful, sunny day. These are things I came so close to losing." Among the blessings Ellison acknowledges is her mother, Jean, who has shared almost every moment of her daughter’s Harvard career, serving as everything from health-care worker to page-turner. For the past three years they have lived in a specially outfitted suite in Currier House with an extra-wide door to fit the massive wheelchair that is Ellison’s primary means of locomotion. Jean Ellison decided to move to Harvard because it was the only way her daughter could be assured of the care she needed. She regrets being separated from her husband (except for weekend visits) but insists that the experience has been anything but a sacrifice. "It’s been incredible," she said. "I’ve felt very accepted by everyone here, from the administrators and deans to the cafeteria workers. It’s been an experience I’ll never forget. Brooke made that possible." Ellison’s field of study has been cognitive neuroscience, a joint concentration combining psychology and biology. Her interest in this area comes from a desire to learn more about her injury and about her chances of recovery, which she believes are quite good. "I keep up with all the literature on regenerating spinal tissue," she said. "I have the utmost confidence that it will be possible in the next decade or so. There’s so much research going on on so many different fronts that it seems impossible that it won’t happen." Ellison’s senior thesis was on another subject in which she has a personal stake. Titled "The Element of Hope in Resilient Adolescents," the study examines the lives of 150 teens, some of whom have faced great adversity and managed to fight back. Her hypothesis is that hope is not an abstraction but rather a cognitive structure that can be cultivated by learning. After graduation, Ellison will move back to the family home in Stony Brook, N.Y. ("My father’s very happy about that!") She plans to finish a book about her life that she has been working on in her spare time and perhaps do some public speaking. But she is unwilling to speculate about what she might be doing five or 10 years from now. "I try not to look that far down the road. So much of my life has been out of my hands that I just don’t want to make any fixed plans for myself."
Copyright 2000 President and Fellows of Harvard College
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