Gabby_ A Story of Courage and Hope - Alison Hanson [97]
I was sitting next to Mrs. Obama, and she kept taking my hand while her husband spoke. I appreciated her gesture, as I tried to remain composed.
“Already,” the president said, “we’ve seen a national conversation commence, not only about the motivations behind these killings, but about everything from the merits of gun safety laws to the adequacy of our mental health system. . . . As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let’s use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy.”
Toward the end of his speech, the president again paid tribute to those who died.
“The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better—to be better friends and neighbors and coworkers and parents. And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their deaths help usher in more civility in our public discourse, let us remember it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy—it did not—but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to the challenges of our nation in a way that would make them proud.”
Back in the ICU, Gabby had no idea that the president had stopped by to visit her, or that he’d left her bedside and spoken about her to the world. I returned to her that night and told her about the speech, the crowd, and the hope we all felt in that arena. Her eyes were closed shut and she gave no indication she’d heard me, but I wanted her to know.
That first week, I tried my best to get away from the hospital to attend the funerals and visitations of those who had died on January 8. I felt a great responsibility to serve as Gabby’s representative.
Funerals are tough under any circumstance. I’ve gone to many of them over my long military and NASA career. Usually the memorial services were for people I knew—whether space shuttle crew members or Navy pilots—who died serving their country, knowing full well that they were putting their lives at risk.
I had never before attended funerals like the ones in that second week of January 2011. Those people died because they chose to visit with my wife. I couldn’t help but feel some sort of transferred responsibility for their deaths. It’s not that I felt Gabby was responsible. But I did think: If she hadn’t worked so hard to win her last election, these people still would be alive. Gabby won the 2010 race by such a narrow margin. It took days until she was finally declared the winner, and then by just four thousand votes. Had she narrowly lost instead of narrowly won, she wouldn’t have held a Congress on Your Corner that day.
In some ways, Christina-Taylor Green’s funeral was the hardest. New York firefighters had flown in with the large flag that had survived the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11. They displayed it between two fire trucks, a tribute to the little girl born that day.
When I walked into the church, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” was playing. I saw the tiny child’s casket, and hundreds of children filling the pews. Many were her classmates from Mesa Verde Elementary School. I was teary along with most of the other eighteen hundred people there. For a nine-year-old girl to die because she was passionate about democracy—it was just so unfair.
Suzi Hileman, the family friend who’d brought Christina to meet Gabby, was still hospitalized with three gunshot wounds and a shattered hip. Her husband, Bill, said she was having flashbacks, and at times had been shouting out Christina’s name. (When I had visited Suzi in her hospital room, she described to me the moment the shooting began. “Christina and I were holding each other so tightly that