16. The Sky Is Not the Limit

I’ve heard you talk about your brother Kevin for the last two years, Kate, and I never knew he was a quadriplegic, said my friend Sandy. How can that be? Well, I guess that’s not what comes to mind when I think of Kevin. It seems like Kevin has spent his life, post-injury, making the rest of us look like slouches, all the while not being able to move anything below his third cervical vertebra. 

Going to law school. Writing three novels. Marrying a brilliant, beautiful woman. Raising a wonderful child whose name, by the way, is Fabrizio Reilly, quite possibly the only Bolivian-American kid with an Italian-Irish name.

Here is my dilemma. This can’t be the “look what he’s achieved in spite of his disability” story. But I also want to honor the gargantuan difficulties in his life. The truth is that Kevin would have led an extraordinary life regardless of his injury. Maybe I should just get on with it.

Kevin got his undergrad degree in Russian, with a minor in Chinese. He’s also fluent in Spanish and conversational in Italian and French. The NSA wanted him, of course, but he went to work for IBM as a systems analyst. One of his first purchases after his paychecks began to accumulate was a bright red Harley Davidson (see Crybabies, Cigars, and a Hog post).

An accident in Chevy Chase, Maryland on an unmarked, partially-paved road broke Kevin’s neck. A nurse who lived nearby did CPR on him until the paramedics got there. Kevin was taken to Suburban Hospital. Reillys filled the waiting room outside the ICU. Friends stopped by day and night, although only family was allowed into the unit. They immediately became Reillys: cousins, uncles, brothers. A priest flew in from Ireland.

After a pulmonologist suggested we stop feeding him, Kevin was moved to George Washington University Hospital. I’m certain that doctor thought he was saying the right thing, the most compassionate thing. We did not fully comprehend what lay ahead. But the truth is neither the doctor nor anyone else knew exactly what the future held for Kevin.

Kevin spent seven weeks in the ICU. After a couple of weeks, he was able to eat solid food. I called him that night and asked him what I could bring. “Pizza,” he said, “from that hole-in-the-wall place on M Street.” This particular pizza place was open 24 hours, so I arrived at the hospital with one extra large pepperoni at 7:45 the next morning. 

When I walked into the ICU, Dr. Knauss looked at the box I carried and said, “Pizza? Wait a minute; I’ve got something that would go great with that.” He returned a few minutes later with a six-pack of beer. (Yes, he had just finished his shift.)

A couple of weeks later, Kevin was able to sit up without his blood pressure going haywire. They brought him a bright orange wheelchair. When he was safely strapped in, I pushed him down the hall. Where should we go? I asked. I haven’t been outside for a long time, he said. Let’s go. We got on the elevator and went to the lobby, where we proceeded out the front door and up 23rd Street to Washington Circle. 

It was a beautiful June day with fluffy white clouds sailing around a bright blue sky — not your typical Washington summer day. We made our way through the traffic and onto the circle and sat below the statue of our country’s founding father for a total of five minutes. Across the circle, we watched as a small phalanx of hospital security guards ran toward us. Apparently, the hospital legal team didn’t like patients sunning themselves on the circle.

After rehab, Kevin moved with his wife Mary back to our family home on Jocelyn Street. They had bought a house in Silver Spring, but it had to be outfitted with an addition that included an accessible bathroom and widened doorways. Meanwhile, Kevin and Mary made the dining room at Jocelyn Street their bedroom. About a year and a half after Kevin’s accident, though, Mary ran off with one of Kevin’s aides, a medical student at Georgetown University. It’s a difficult transition for any couple to navigate, and they were no different.

Life sucked. And Kevin’s care was expensive. He continued working at IBM and applied to Georgetown Law School. He met with Martha Hoff, the dean, and she was encouraging. But it was a wild time. While working full-time at IBM and going to law school at night, Kevin had two surgeries for pressure sores and one for sleep apnea. One of his fellow students commented that in going to grad school under those circumstances, Kevin had more balls than a platoon of marines. 

After four years Kevin graduated and passed the bar in D.C. For a few years he represented clients through the Criminal Justice Act (aka public defenders). A couple of clients also came to him who were trying to get status in the U.S. With his background in languages, Kevin found that immigration law was the best fit, and he has since represented clients from La Paz to Ulaan Baatar.

Along the way, Kevin served as acting president of the Spinal Cord Injury Association of America. The Americans with Disabilities Act had passed recently, and he knew the time was ripe for letting people know how able “disabled” people are. He thought jumping out of an airplane might garner some attention for the cause.

Kevin started calling skydiving schools up and down the Mid-Atlantic. From most of them he got a hasty dismissal. Finally, he called the Skydiving Center in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. The owner was intrigued. He thought they could fashion a harness that would work so that Kevin could make a tandem jump with a master skydiver.

The hand-built harness held Kevin’s knees at a 40-degree angle to his body with his feet underneath him. The top of the harness held his arms across his chest. When he got to Chambersburg, the crew put the harness on Kevin and loaded him onto the plane. Then, using the harness, they hung him from the wall of the airplane. 

It turns out the media was interested. Chris Gordon at WUSA, Washington’s CBS affiliate, went to Chambersburg to cover the jump. To watch the piece that ran on Channel 9’s five o’clock news, click the play button in the box above this paragraph.

The master skydiver who agreed to take Kevin for the jump was Rich Lochman. By profession Rich was a salvage diver. Clearly not satisfied with walking upon this earth, he preferred to be flying above it or diving to the bottom of the ocean. And Rich was happy to help Kevin experience the former. 

To say that Kevin enjoyed the dive is a massive understatement. If you watch the news story, it’s clear just how much fun he had. So much so, that he went back again to jump with one of the guys who worked for him…and then, again, when a friend wanted to jump with him.

For the fourth jump, he got a call from the cousin of a childhood friend. She had seen the news piece and said she would pay for his jump if he’d jump with her. On that last one, the wind was up, and they missed their landing spot. We landed in a graveyard, Kevin said. I thought that might be an omen that I should stop skydiving.

In 1993, Kevin decided he would like to learn Spanish. The City Paper had an ad for one-on-one Spanish instruction. Nena Bracamonte came to Kevin’s apartment to teach him Spanish once a week. Soon their classes expanded to include listening to music and making dinner together. They fell in love. Kevin’s siblings were a little wary of anyone who wanted to marry Kevin — being overly-protective was in our DNA. Maybe this beautiful Bolivian wanted a green card, and she would break his heart. 

One day Missy called me. Our worries are for nothing, she said. I just drove up Connecticut Avenue and saw Kevin and Nena on a stroll. She was pushing his wheelchair up the street with her arms wrapped around his neck in a sweet embrace. Cheek to cheek. Now she may be our favorite Reilly. Beautiful. Smart. Kind.

A few months ago, Nena’s mother and niece Brenda were visiting from Bolivia. They were helping with Kevin’s care to minimize his possible exposure to Covid-19. The only person who came from outside the house was Nena’s former brother-in-law Javier. Fabrizio, who had already had Covid, was also in the house since his classes at Catholic University were all online. But everyone else — Nena, her mom, Javier, and Brenda — all came down with Covid. Kevin never got sick. Who knows why he didn’t? Fabrizio laughs, Of course not. My dad’s impervious to viral infection. He’s a superhero. 

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In a sad coda to this story, about ten years after Kevin’s Chambersburg adventures, he called the skydiving center and asked for Rich Lochman. He was told that Rich had been killed in a car accident with a drunk driver the day before. Rich had made all four jumps with Kevin.