Gabby Giffords
Do you get CNN? Do you shop on Amazon? If so, I urge you to watch the documentary, Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down. It’s enlightening, to say the least. It’s inspiring from start to finish.
Gabby Giffords, if you remember (and who doesn’t?) was shot in the head during a congressional appearance in front of a Safeway store in Arizona on January 8, 2011. Other people were injured or shot to death as well, but it’s Gabby Giffords’ story I’m writing about now. She didn’t technically have a stroke, but she might as well have. She had a TBI (traumatic brain injury), which is basically the same thing, with a different cause.
She not only survived, she triumphed.
This was a woman who had to learn to walk and talk all over again. It took her years to recover. Progress was slow and painful. She still is paralyzed on her right side. It hasn’t stopped her from lobbying for an end to gun violence. It hasn’t stopped her husband, Mark Kelly, from running for the Senate and winning. These are extraordinary people, to be sure, but they can—and should—inspire everybody who’s had a stroke and is struggling to recover. It can be done!
What the documentary doesn’t show, and can’t possibly, is all the hours of trial and tribulation a TBI—and stroke—survivor experiences. It’s hard. Sometimes it’s boring. You fail a lot. You fall a lot. You spill things. You break things.
I can’t begin to tell you how much mopping up I’ve done, how much broken glass I’ve cleaned up, while shouting at the poor dog to stay away. Each time, I swear I’m never doing that again, only to do it again a day later. Sometimes an hour later! All I can say is, I’m so happy sponges and vacuum cleaners exist.
I’ve broken lovely and irreplaceable things. I’ve learned to put those that are left on shelves where I can admire them but not touch them. This formerly graceful and careful person, although coming back, breaks things easily now. It’s just made me more ingenious.
It’s so easy to just give up. Let someone else do it. But Gabby Giffords won’t back down, and neither do I. I recognize a fighting spirit when I see one, and she’s got it in spades.
I’ll never hold office, but I can bake a mean cake. I’ll never give a speech in front of thousands, but I can walk down a jetway without holding on to the rails. I go to the movies, the theater. I take care of a dog. I travel. I can walk (admittedly carefully) on sandy beaches. I’ve started dancing a little in the kitchen. Without falling down!
Everybody needs a hero. I have a new one now: Gabby Giffords. Do you have one? It helps, it really does.