Gabby_ A Story of Courage and Hope - Alison Hanson [45]
I grew to accept that a lot of my efforts would seem fruitless, at least for a while. Breakthroughs would come when they came.
On the concept of asking questions, for instance, I had to commit myself to trying, day after day, to coax a question out of her. Doctors and psychologists advised us that until Gabby was able to ask questions on her own, we needed to refrain from giving her too much information about the shooting. It might be terrifying and even debilitating if we were to load her up with the particulars of the tragedy if she had no way of asking for more details or of expressing her grief. She also might feel very guilty, holding herself responsible for the six deaths and twelve other injuries, since it was her idea to host the Congress on Your Corner event.
If and when she was able to ask questions, we were told, she’d be better able to emotionally handle the full story of January 8. Until then, doctors instructed us to proceed gently.
And so each day I would work with Gabby, slowly and carefully explaining to her what constituted a question.
“Questions begin with the same words,” I said to her one day. “Who, what, when, where, why, how. Let me give you some examples. What time is it? Where is my mom? Who is coming for dinner? When did it stop raining? Now you try, Gabby. Let’s start a sentence. What . . .”
She looked at me and said nothing.
I gave it another shot. “What . . .”
“Tired,” she said. “I’m tired.”
“I know you’re tired, Gabby, but let’s try this. Try to start a sentence with the word ‘what.’”
She struggled to think, and I could tell she wanted to please me by responding. A minute went by. Finally, she was ready to talk.
“What I’m tired,” she said.
I shook my head. “Gabby, that’s not a question.”
She cast her eyes downward. She knew she hadn’t come through the way I wanted her to, but the ability to ask a simple question was beyond her grasp.
Sometimes, I’d think about the fact that all my adult life, I’d been a guy whose dreams were big and ambitious. I used to dream of flying fighter planes, and that dream came true. I used to dream of being the first human to walk on Mars. Though I’m still about 40 million miles away from that one, I made a good effort.
But after Gabby’s injury, I often felt as if my dreams had become completely basic. I spent my days hoping that Gabby would be able to end a sentence with a question mark. And then at night, after I’d drift off to sleep, she would appear to me, asking about everything.
When I look back at my life, I see certain experiences and lessons that helped prepare me to be a caregiver to Gabby. At the Merchant Marine Academy, I learned to appreciate that actions have consequences; how you respond in a situation determines the chain of events that follows. You can’t just rely on your gut. You have to think about the ramifications of every decision. After Gabby was hurt, I saw that was especially true when determining her medical treatments and therapies.
Twenty-five years in the Navy and at NASA taught me to prioritize, to ask the question: “What’s the most important thing I should be doing right now?” Sometimes that meant making a split-second decision, and it had to be the right decision because your life depended on it. But I also embraced the mantra of NASA’s first flight director, Chris Kraft: When you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything. I kept that in mind, as I tried not to rush into decisions about Gabby. If there was time to collect facts and weigh data, I did it.
Training for and then flying the space shuttle, I learned how to think clearly under pressure, and how to avoid making mistakes when I was incredibly tired. That’s a learned skill as well, and I’d need it in the early days after Gabby was shot, when I was functioning on just a couple hours of sleep.
During all my years of education, training, and flying, it wouldn’t have occurred to me that I was also preparing to serve as a caregiver. But I was.
I entered the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy after graduating from high school in 1982. My brother, Scott, meanwhile, attended