Giffords leads crowd in Pledge of Allegiance

Rep. Gabrielle Gif­fords, left, accom­pa­nied by her hus­band, for­mer astro­naut Mark Kelly, reacts after lead­ing the Pledge of Alle­giance at the start of a memo­r­ial vigil remem­ber­ing the vic­tims and sur­vivors one year after the Ari­zona con­gress­woman was wounded in a shoot­ing that killed six oth­ers Sun­day in Tuc­son, Ariz. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Ross D. Franklin)

AMANDA LEE MYERS

Asso­ci­ated Press

TUCSON, Ariz. — Rep. Gabrielle Gif­fords led a crowd in the Pledge of Alle­giance, her words ring­ing out across a cold Tuc­son night in a rare pub­lic appear­ance Sun­day evening at a can­dle­light vigil one year after sur­viv­ing a deadly shooting.

The Demo­c­ra­tic con­gress­woman — who has strug­gled to re-learn to walk after being shot in the head — stepped onstage to cheers from the crowd. Ron Bar­ber, a staffer who was wounded in the ram­page that killed six one year ago, invited her to lead the audi­ence in the pledge.

The crowd chanted: “Gabby, Gabby.”

She limped to the podium, and hus­band Mark Kelly helped lift her left hand over her heart. After months of inten­sive speech ther­apy, Gif­fords recited the pledge with the audi­ence, head held high and a smile on her face as she punched each word.

The remem­brance at the Uni­ver­sity of Ari­zona capped off a day of events, includ­ing a church ser­vice that drew hun­dreds in the after­noon and a city­wide bell-ringing at 10:11 a.m., the exact time a gun­man started shoot­ing at a Safe­way polit­i­cal event on Jan. 8, 2011.

With hugs and tears, south­ern Ari­zo­nans remem­bered the dead, the shat­tered lives and those who acted hero­ically after a gun­man opened fire at an out­door meet-and-greet that severely wounded Gif­fords and 12 others.

“Even in the midst of this trou­bling year, the heal­ing, the courage that we have expe­ri­enced in our com­mu­nity — each one of us can notice how our cups over­flow with the bless­ings of our lives,” said Stephanie Aaron, Gif­fords’ rabbi, who recited the 23rd Psalm at an inter­faith ser­vice at the cathe­dral Sun­day afternoon.

Rel­a­tives of the six dead walked solemnly down the aisle with a sin­gle red rose, plac­ing the flow­ers in a vase in front of a pic­ture of a heart.

Hun­dreds of peo­ple at the cathe­dral — includ­ing Gov. Jan Brewer — stood and chanted, “We remem­ber, we remem­ber, we remem­ber with grate­ful hearts.” Some closed their eyes while oth­ers held each other.

At the evening ser­vice, 19 can­dles marked the lost and the sur­vivors. Gif­fords and Kelly lit one can­dle together as an orches­tra played and many in the crowd wept. The emo­tional ser­vice brought together many who sur­vived the shoot­ing, and those who lost loved ones.

Suzi Hile­man, who was shot three times, took the stage, hugged Gif­fords and walked to the can­dle area. She lit one, put her hands over her heart and mouthed “thank you” to the crowd.

Gif­fords, 41, has spent the last year in Hous­ton under­go­ing inten­sive phys­i­cal and speech ther­apy in a recov­ery that doc­tors and fam­ily have called mirac­u­lous. She is able to walk and talk, vote in Con­gress and gave a tele­vised inter­view to ABC’s Diane Sawyer in May.

But doc­tors have said it would take many months to deter­mine the last­ing effects of her brain injury. The three-term con­gress­woman has four months to decide whether to seek re-election.

Bar­ber said he spent time with Gif­fords on Fri­day and Saturday.

“Even though it’s a hard week­end for her and all of us, she wanted to be here with her com­mu­nity to remem­ber,” he said. “She’s sad, we’re all sad, and she’s glad to be home.”

Jared Lee Lough­ner has pleaded not guilty to 49 charges in the shoot­ing. The 23-year-old, who has been diag­nosed with bipo­lar dis­or­der, is being forcibly med­icated at a Mis­souri prison facil­ity in an effort to make him men­tally ready for trial.

Pres­i­dent Barack Obama called Gif­fords on Sun­day to offer his sup­port and tell her he and the first lady are keep­ing her, the fam­i­lies of those killed and the whole Tuc­son com­mu­nity in their thoughts and prayers, accord­ing to the White House. He said Gif­fords was an inspi­ra­tion to all Americans.

At an after­noon event at the Uni­ver­sity of Ari­zona, Col­orado Sen. Mark Udall, who was born and raised in Tuc­son, spoke about Giffords.

He praised Gif­fords for work­ing for the good of the coun­try, and said other politi­cians can learn from her and move away from incen­di­ary comments.

“Although Gabby now strug­gles with her words at times, we know what she’s try­ing to say,” Udall said. “It’s a sim­ple con­cept. Words mat­ter, and these days you don’t hear our elected offi­cials using words to bring us together. Too often words are used as weapons.”

Of 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, her two best friends recalled a girl who aspired to dance with Bey­once, to be the first woman in Major League Base­ball and one day be elected pres­i­dent United States.

“She wasn’t afraid of boys or sports or any­thing,” Seren­ity Hamm­rich said, wear­ing a black dress and stand­ing with Jamie Stone on stage while many in the audi­ence wept. “When she made stu­dent coun­cil, I was so happy for her. She believed it was impos­si­ble to help oth­ers to try to make a dif­fer­ence in the school and to put oth­ers first.”

The Rev. Andrew Ross, spoke for shoot­ing vic­tim and his con­gre­gant Phyl­lis Schneck.

“I remem­ber just shak­ing and as I shared with my con­gre­ga­tion, my imme­di­ate response was anger, in fact rage, that some­one would once again do this to a mem­ber of our flock,” Ross said. “And so it’s good for us to be hon­est and admit it’s not easy remem­ber­ing this day. We have to be hon­est about that.”

At the Safe­way memo­r­ial, Bruce Ellis and his wife Kelly Hard­esty, both 50, held each other tight and wept as the bells rang.

“It’s shock­ing to have a mas­sacre like this occur in your back­yard,” Ellis said. “It’s some­thing that hap­pens on the news, not in your neighborhood.”

About 30 oth­ers rang bells, hugged each other and cried as the time of the shoot­ing passed. Many bowed in prayer.

Gail Gar­diner, 70, who lives about a mile away, tied a bal­loon Sun­day that said, “Think­ing of you,” to a rail­ing next to a memo­r­ial of the shoot­ing that reads: “The Tuc­son Tragedy … we shall never forget.”

Albert Pesqueira, assis­tant fire chief for the North­west Fire Dis­trict in Tuc­son, was one of the first respon­ders to the shoot­ing. He came to the Safe­way on Sun­day to remem­ber and to heal.

His most vivid mem­o­ries from that day are the sounds of moan­ing and cry­ing among shoot­ing vic­tims in the after­math of the attack.

“I can still hear them,” Pesqueira said. “We’ll never be the same. We’ll never be nor­mal again because of what occurred.”

Posted by AP News on Jan 8 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.