Gabby_ A Story of Courage and Hope - Alison Hanson [101]
If Gabby had been able to sit in on the discussions about the rehab options, I believe she would have voted for TIRR also. I made arrangements to have her transferred there as soon as her Tucson medical team determined she was ready.
When it came to such big issues, I think those of us who love Gabby did well in considering what we felt her wishes would be. There were times, however, when we forgot to fully consider “What would Gabby want?” For instance, Gabby would have wanted us to remember to go to her Tucson condo and put food in the fish tank. Everyone was so overwhelmed after January 8 that, for several days, it slipped our minds. The two dozen fish that died in her home ended up being secondary casualties of the shooting.
Often, as I strove to honor Gabby’s intent and her wishes, I had flashbacks to our previous life together. When Gabby was shot, her wallet was in her purse. After the wallet was returned to me, I had to smile. I hated that thing. She’d gotten it at a secondhand store in Arizona. It had the word “Cherry” embossed on it, so I always assumed its previous owner was a woman named Cherry.
“You’re a member of Congress,” I had told her, “and you’re walking around with some other person’s old wallet?”
But Gabby waved me off. She felt affection for that brown leather wallet with Western stitching. She liked that it was recycled.
Now I held it in my hands. She was carrying $135 in cash on January 8. She also had $10 in coupons for Buffalo Exchange, the secondhand store founded in Tucson that is now a national chain.
Looking through her wallet, I came upon a small folded piece of paper. As I opened it up, an image came into my head of Gabby, on several occasions, taking out that paper to soberly look at it. Then she’d refold it and put it back in her Cherry wallet.
Titled “Iraq/Afghanistan War Deaths Arizona CD8,” the paper contained the names of the twenty soldiers in her district who’d lost their lives in those wars. Their ages were listed by their names, along with their date of death. The two youngest were nineteen years old. The oldest was forty-three.
“It’s important for me to think about those who died in combat,” she told me once, as she held the list in her hand.
Each time a soldier from her district died, a new list would be created. Gabby would take out the old list from her wallet and replace it with the new one.
What would Gabby want me to do with her Cherry wallet? She’d want me to keep it in a safe place. When she was better, I knew, she’d want to take out that list and reflect on it again. And maybe someday, she could go to Buffalo Exchange and use those coupons to buy something old and odd that only she could love.
Those of us who loved Gabby weren’t the only ones weighing in on what Gabby would want. Strangers considered the question, too. TV pundits and Internet bloggers, for instance, speculated about whether Gabby would prefer that I step down from my shuttle mission. “She’d want her husband to remain by her side,” some argued, “not off in outer space for two weeks.” The New York Times asked whether I was “bullheaded to go on such a risky business trip.” Readers posted their opinions on the newspaper’s website. “The truly courageous and strong thing to do is to be an accessible partner to your disabled wife,” one reader wrote. “Just sayin’.”
But everyone who knew Gabby well was certain where she’d fall on this issue. I was, too.
“Don’t even think of backing out,” she would have