(L-R) Pat Mitchell interviews Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly. Photo: James Duncan Davidson
In January 2011, US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head in an attack on her entourage at a constituent meeting near Tucson. Six people died and thirteen others were injured. She survived, and her recovery has been a remarkable story. At TED2014 she took the stage with her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, for a Q&A with the head of the Paley Center for Media, Pat Mitchell. Giffords suffered from aphasia as part of her injury, and speaking is still difficult, so her answers were short, and much of the speaking was done by Kelly. This is an edited set of highlights from that Q&A.
Pat Mitchell: Has your recovery been an effort to create a new Gabby Giffords or reclaim the old?
Gabby Giffords: A new one, better, stronger, tougher.
What’s the hardest part of the recovery?
GG: Communication, really hard.
MK: Yeah, she has aphasia. The part of your brain where those communication centers are is on the left side of your head where the bullet passed through… Only my wife is someone who could be injured and have such hard time communicating, meeting with speech therapist, and then a month ago she says, “I want to learn Spanish, again.”
Where did you meet?
MK: When we met, oddly enough, it was the last time we were in Vancouver, headed to China on what I would call a boondoggle, and what Gabby would call an Important Fact-Finding Mission. We were friends for a long time. And then, where did we go on our first date?
GG: Death row.
MK: Yep, our first date was to death row at the Florence State Prison in Arizona, just outside of her state senate district. She had to go to a function and couldn’t get anyone else to go. I said, of course I’ll go to death row. That was our first date. We’ve been together ever since.
What’s life like day to day?
MK: (pointing to the screen) That’s Nelson, Gabby’s service dog. We got him from prison — we have a lot of connections to prison apparently. He was raised by a murder in Massachusetts, and she’s done a great job with him.
How do you maintain your optimism?
GG: I want to make the world a better place.
What’s on the agenda now?
GG: Americans for Responsible Solutions.
MK: That’s our political action committee, trying to get members of Congress to take a more serious look at gun violence in this country, and pass reasonable legislation. [applause] It’s personal to us, but it wasn’t what happened to Gabby that got us involved, it was the 20 murdered children in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. The national response has been pretty much nothing. We’re trying to change that… We’re gun owners, we support gun rights. This issue, like many others, has become very polarized and political, we’re trying to bring some balance to the debate.
(L-R) Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly. Photo: Ryan Lash
At the end, Mitchell gives Giffords the stage to present a short talk she had done the enormous work to prepare, on the idea she wanted to leave the audience with:
Hello everyone. Thank you for inviting us here today. It’s been a long haul but I’m getting better. I’ve been working hard: lots of therapy, speech therapy, physical therapy, yoga too. I’m fighting hard to make the world a better place and you can too. Get involved with your community, be a leader, set an example, be passionate, be your best.
Comments (7)
Nonie Babula commented on Jun 20 2014
Gabby and Mark, you are both two of the most kind and courageous people that could ever lend your voice and support to this most important cause. Most of us feel stifled by groups such as the NRA and the ones they control with their money. It’s very obvious that the majority in this country want some form of what is called gun control and many, such as me, don’t want any more gun deaths. I am a believer in “actions speak louder than words.” If you, Gabby and Mark are really serious about contributing to the end of gun violence, you will both “put down your guns.”
This responsible action will then prove to all of us that you are doing all possible and not just half the job that you have been chosen to do.
I hope you don’t take this as a criticism as much as a desire for Peace for future dead Kids parents.
Elizabeth (El) Rukeyser Johnson commented on May 22 2014
Reblogged this on Up Right with the USA and commented:
Thinking about Gabby Giffords this evening. She’s a walk on water kind of heroine Americans could take a good hard look at, and look up to about now. And Mark Kelly, well, I’m speechless and infinitely grateful for his lead by example.
Let’s say, the tragedies they endured, directly followed by their commitment to public service have placed an itch in my mind.
The causes of concern; each and every contributing element that placed Congressperson Giffords so close to death in a public forum directly at the hands of a person with not a few serious mental disorders, in possession of a lethal weapon is fraught with so many hot political topics it boggles the mind.
No sound byte here.
Got to take this one apart slowly, watching carefully each thread and how it is attached to its adjacent threads, and how those are connected to yet other threads, tethered to a round of agendas, each with a trigger-happy legislator hanging on the other end draped on one side of the fence or the other, ultimately tied in a noose over which indecision moves into place of power and intellectually honest decisions cannot be made. Instead fences, that are drawing up bills fattened with pork bellies…well the setup makes for a platform not unlike a Gordion Knot.
To say “it’s complicated” doesn’t quite compute. Such an interconnected blending of competing, mutually exclusive issues loaded with direct consequences, some of which have proven pathetic failures.
Moral, societal, political, legal, administrative, enforcement, medical, civil rights and their sub-sets of issues have come to bear on what concerns me, and what concerns the Giffords/Kelly voice.
For once, let’s refuse to merely cut the knot, but take some time to find the roots of the matters. Yeah, they’re each connected but there are some fusions that might help us get a template we can work with.
I like to start with consciousness raising and the rights of each and every individual involved. With that we may find a treatment plan for each contribution to the Knot of the Big Picture.
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Steve Jurvetson commented on Apr 12 2014
Photos of their sympatico, up close: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/13791593524/
Joseph Pellerito Jr. commented on Mar 23 2014
Reblogged this on HEROES NATION BLOG by Joseph Pellerito Jr. and commented:
A brave woman. A devoted husband. And the result of dedicated therapists who helped Mrs. Giffords rebuild her life through passionate and effective physical medicine and rehabilitation!
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