Gabby_ A Story of Courage and Hope - Alison Hanson [64]
“Married,” she said.
“Yes, we got married. But there was something magical that happened as we were getting married. Do you remember what it was?”
She thought for just a few seconds and then she smiled. “Rain,” she said.
I was so thrilled to see that she remembered and could say it.
That night we got married, we were under the chuppah, which was all lit up, and we were about to begin saying our vows. Just then, as we looked into each other’s eyes, the lightest sprinkle started to fall from the sky. It lasted only the length of our vows, about forty-five seconds, before it stopped.
It really was magical. As I gazed at Gabby, thinking how gorgeous and happy she looked, the air was sparkling from the lights and the misty raindrops. And then the rain passed and we were husband and wife.
Some cultures consider rain at a wedding to be good luck or an indication of fertility. The Italians even have a saying: “Sposa bagnata, sposa fortunata.” A wet bride is a lucky bride.
“Rain,” Gabby said again, and I could see she was thinking back to that happy moment.
I reached for her hand, and as always, she found her way to my wedding ring, which she slipped off easily, onto her waiting fingers.
CHAPTER TEN
The Ace of Spades
In the spring of 2011, I was simultaneously the commander of space shuttle Endeavour and the assistant chief of encouragement at Gabby’s bedside. During the workday, her mom, Gloria, was on duty as chief encourager and cheerleader while I was at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, training for my upcoming mission.
Doctors at TIRR, the rehab hospital, told us that our optimism and encouragement could make a great difference in Gabby’s recovery, and they suggested specific, meaningful things we could do.
For instance, we were told to encourage her not to forget about the right side of her body. Because she was shot on the left side of her head, it was the mobility on her right side that was severely compromised. That’s just how the wiring in the brain works. There was another issue, too: A bullet passing through a brain is just the beginning of the injury process. That wiring in the brain suffers even more damage in the days that follow.
After Gabby was shot, brain tissue bruised by the bullet continued to swell for days, killing additional cells in the left side of her brain. That likely caused more impairment to the right side of her body. (Gabby was lucky that the bullet did not cross the geometric center line which splits the brain’s left and right hemispheres. That likely would have been fatal, because both sides of her brain would have swelled.)
A lot of traumatic-brain-injury patients ignore the side of their body opposite their brain injury. Gabby understood this impulse and fought it, making efforts every day to move her right leg and to try to move her right arm. Our job was to urge her on.
“Hey, Gabby,” I’d say when we were both just sitting around. “Try to move your right hand.”
She’d give me a look of weariness, and issue a sigh that suggested, “OK, but don’t expect too much. We’ve tried this before, and we know how it turns out.”
Still, she’d make a gallant attempt. She’d stare at her hand for a little while, as if she was using telepathy to will it to move. She could sometimes get it to twitch slightly, but it usually just remained still.
“Come on, Gabby, try to move it,” I’d say again.
And that’s when she’d do exactly what I asked. She’d use her good left hand to grasp her floppy right hand. She’d pick it up from her wheelchair armrest and place it on her lap. Then she’d smile at me playfully, as if to say, “You asked me to move my right hand. Well, I did. Now stop bothering me!”
She still had her sense of humor.
In those months, Gabby and I followed pretty much the same daily routine. Because my house in League City is far from the downtown hospital, I was staying at the home of our friends Tilman and Paige Fertitta, in Houston’s River Oaks neighborhood. I’d wake up each day at 6:00 a.m., and by 6:30 I’d be at the Starbucks in the Highland Village Shopping Center, picking