Despite rumors he's considering a political run, retired astronaut Mark Kelly told a Tucson audience Tuesday night that his only plans for the future are helping his wife to get better.
"Tomorrow I'll be making Gabby dinner. On Thursday I'll be making her breakfast. … I left my job at NASA so that I could take it day by day and really focus on Gabby," Kelly said during a talk about "Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope," a memoir he wrote with his wife, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and with Wall Street Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow.
"Tucson deserves to have Gabby back," Kelly added.
He spoke to a crowd of about 2,300 at the University of Arizona's Centennial Hall in a talk moderated by Ted Robbins, a National Public Radio correspondent based in Tucson. The crowd was extremely favorable to Kelly, giving him a standing ovation and chiming in with loud applause several times when he spoke about his wife. The audience included several of the people who were wounded, along with Giffords, by a Tucson gunman on Jan. 8.
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The talk was hosted by Tucson's annual Festival of Books, set for March 10 and 11 at the UA. Kelly is scheduled to be at the festival to talk about the book along with Zaslow. Kelly said he is hopeful Giffords, 41, will attend, as well.
Kelly, 47, said Giffords' progress from being shot through the left side of the brain is not happening "hour by hour" as it did early in her recovery, but she continues to get better at a steady pace. Her right arm doesn't have much movement at all, but her right leg has shown improvement. Her comprehension skills are excellent, and her personality is intact, he said. Her biggest struggle is with communication.
Her determination is the same. She balked at the wheelchair ramp Kelly tried putting in the house - he took it out after six hours. And the cane she was given? She walked it into the garage and left it there.
He spoke about the shift in their marriage since the shooting, too. The couple went from spending about 100 days per year with one another, to being together 24/7. And while Giffords used to do most of the talking, it's Kelly who now assumes that role. Acting as his wife's advocate and being there for her is "what you sign up for" with marriage, Kelly said.
"When somebody you love winds up in this situation, you have got to be the person who is there. It's been an interesting year. It's had some really incredible lows, and some incredible highs, too."
Earlier Tuesday, Kelly said he and his wife also hope to be back in Tucson in January for observances of the first anniversary of the Jan. 8 shooting tragedy, which killed six people and wounded 13.
When asked what has touched him most this past year, Kelly said it was the loss of 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, the youngest Jan. 8 victim. "That's certainly the most tragic thing about this story. Gabby was horribly injured, but she survived."
Contact the reporter at sinnes@azstarnet.com
