Gabby_ A Story of Courage and Hope - Alison Hanson [34]
He and I did everything together. We were both captains of the swim team, and we were both pole-vaulters and scuba divers. We served together as emergency medical technicians on the local ambulance corps, working from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. on many school nights. We have a lot of shared memories of pulling passengers out of car wrecks and helping elderly people who’d fallen and broken bones. Once, the two of us had to carry a three-hundred-pound woman down several flights of stairs, giving her CPR every time we stopped on a landing. I can still see the grimace on Scott’s face as we carried that woman on the stretcher.
After our ambulance runs ended at dawn, we’d usually shower and go to school—but not always. Sometimes we just had to crash. I missed sixty days of classes my senior year and still worked hard enough to get mostly As.
The shooting in Tucson led me to have a few flashbacks from my teen years as an EMT. Scott and I worked some tough neighborhoods. I put on my first bulletproof vest at age seventeen. I remember one night we picked up a young African-American man in Newark who had seven bullet holes in him, including a gunshot wound to the head. He was alive when we delivered him to the hospital emergency room, but I never found out what became of him. After Gabby was shot, I found myself thinking about that young man. I wonder how he is doing today, if he’s still alive.
I’m lucky I have Scott to talk to about all of these memories.
Once Scott and I became astronauts—the only twins and the only siblings to fly in space—people often asked us about the role our upbringing played in shaping our lives and careers. Later, after Gabby and I got married, people often asked us about how our upbringings shaped our marriage.
Well, here’s an answer.
Gabby and I have come to realize that though our backgrounds appear so different on the surface, we have much in common. We both come from families that are colorful in their own ways. That’s obvious. And we both come from parents who stressed to us the importance of public service. For my mom and dad, dangerous police work was their way of making a difference. For their part, Gabby’s parents spent a lifetime being charitable and serving their community, instilling in Gabby the idea that she had it within her to change the world.
There’s another thing, too. I think both Gabby and I were raised to be risk-takers. Going into space is one kind of risk. But setting up a table in a public square as an elected official is a risk, too.
Sometimes, risk-taking yields inspiration and hope. You take a risk—as a cop, an astronaut, a congresswoman—and good might come of it. You might get new perspectives you can share with other people.
After Scott returned from space, on that first day when he saw Gabby, he told her a story. “You know,” he said, “I had such a unique vantage point from up there. I’d look out the window, and I’d see a lot of beauty.”
He explained to Gabby that in the wake of her injury, he had tweeted a photo from space of the Tucson area as a tribute to her. He said that people in Arizona and beyond were very touched by that. He talked about how inviting and peaceful the Earth looks from space, how there are no borders between countries. Gabby listened and nodded.
I was grateful that my brother came bearing this message. It was as if he wanted to reassure Gabby that, although she was a victim of violence, he saw the possibilities of a more peaceful planet.
CHAPTER SIX
“Fly Away Home”
During the five months when Gabby was in the hospital and then in the rehab facility, her doctors and nurses joked that the elevator door would open and they never knew who might be asking for directions to Gabby’s room. It could be a senator, a former cabinet member, the president of the United States, or someone less assuming—a colorful old friend from Tucson who had come to reminisce and make Gabby laugh.
Especially at the beginning, we limited visitors. Like many brain-injury victims, Gabby was often exhausted and in pain. Those of us closest to her appreciated that people