U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords continues to show progress as she recovers from a gun shot wound to her brain. Looking beyond the completely ridiculous political fallout from the assassination attempt, here is a woman facing the abyss, and fighting to hold on. To me, she is becoming an inspiration. Very few human beings face anything like what stands in her way.
What happened to Giffords hits deep for several reasons. The shootings make us think of the people we love, and the horror of seeing anyone close to us killed or severely injured. It underlines our mortality and the utter lack of a guaranteed tomorrow. Think of anyone you love, anyone close to you, anyone with whom you’ve shared joy and pain. Unless they are in the room with you as you read this, you do not know at this very instant if they are alive. And you do not know if either of you will live to see each other again. The improbability of dying on this particular day often dulls our sense of mortality. What happened in Tuscon throws it back in our faces.
There is also a political dimension to all this, even if the shooter was insane. There were two ends of the bullet’s trajectory. On the receiving end was a representative of our Republic. No matter what was in the mind of the killer, this was an attack on our government.
But more importantly it was an attack on people loved by other people. We can if forced to live without a constitutional republic. We cannot live without the people we love. Giffords is not struggling to recover so that she can cast votes in Congress. She is fighting to be with the people she loves and who love her. In this, we should imitate her.
