we were taking our 8 year old daughter to her soccer game, miles from our house, the entire family in the car. we happened to stop at the traffic light where congresswoman giffords was about to give her “open air” conference. we had no idea. this was 10 minutes before the shooting started.

we continued on, late again.

on the way back from the game we got caught in the standstill traffic from the police barricade there. we recognized the soccer mom stuck in traffic next to us and her head was shaking in the car as if something terrible had happened. rolled down the windows and she heard what the barricade here was all about.

our broken car radio goes on and off at will. it crackled on again and  informed us that the congresswoman was dead. we sat there stunned in disbelief. endless minutes later, the radio corrected itself and said she was still alive and in surgery.

it was an impossibly wonderful feeling to hear, that glimpse of new hope; the missing moments after john lennon was shot.

–  -   -

i had just ran into gabby giffords last october, her and i alone for a few minutes outside the hotel congress, chatting. she’s an inspiration to be around. it was like talking to a rock star, except way smarter. she has a vibrancy that you want to offer up any available resource to .. “anything we can do ?”  kind of vibe. then left there  pondering the unique dazzle of her path, her stopping there all alone, making a quick stop on the way to garnish voters support at a public speaking rally. her energy left a kind of boat wake when she zipped out of there.

a year before, during a local ceremony i’d been inducted into, i had rigged my mic earlier in the day so i could facilitate an effect that would change my voice into something of a high pitched synthesis. at the point of my acceptance speech, i began singing a typical sounding country song (“nowhere”), and then engaged the pedal so it began transforming my voice into something from mars. i spotted ‘gabby’ sitting there cracking up from the intended effect, her laughter seriously infectious. sang to her for the remainder of the song just loving her laughter, like she could really enjoy the surreal moment and let go some.

last year on the road i heard ‘gabby’ speaking on npr. she was so intelligent in her statement against our notorious new state law and her personal contact with ranchers living on the border who were also against it. she was absolutely brilliant. poetic in her delivery. the first time i’ve ever felt proud of any representation in government:

a glimmer of hope.

- — – - -

a glimmer of hope, like her voice, in the candles that flicker here now.

-   -  –

we’re all severely saddened and hoping for the best outcome. the heartbreak of the 9 yr old girl and her family is tough to accept. and that judge seemed like a very good man, the kind hard to find to handle such impossible workload in which only a life time of service can help prepare for.  and all the others that have fallen, her young aid and the  mostly elderly people that were taking in the sunny day and hoping for a life affirming spark from that congressional luminous known around here as ‘gabby’.

when you now see sheriff dupnik (the boss sheriff here as long as i can remember) on tv discussing the tragic matters, he lends the kind of comfort that only an elder can. sounding bright and clear at 74, i sit amazed and stirred when he uses the moment to make the point that the “vitriol” from the current trend in politics, certainly from those that utilize school-yard-name-calling and surprising hate/fear tactics, can ultimately end in such a horrific outcome when the young, or unstable, whom have never known a time when such tactics were simply intolerable.

in these days that follow, there is some targeting from the obvious parties to point the finger at what the sheriff said and when and how he said it. i reckon there is no time and place left to be the correct time and place. it was the kind of scolding needed at a most powerful point of being heard. that moment now adorns the prospect of change from such intense sacrifice. the sheriff has the goods. coined it in one word; vitriol.

-  –  -

so we light the candles and sit and pray in one way or the other. we may wonder about the ripple effect from the heartbreaking scene here in tucson, but mostly we just want to see ‘gabby’ up and around again, hear her laughter, and  believe that that which is good can overcome unspeakable evil under any such difficult odds.

we stand by each other in relative proximity and don’t say much. its all laid out in front of us. a kind of sad semi smile, a tilt of the head, a droop of the eye; probably what angels expressions look like having to bear witness on the mess humans continuously get themselves into.

almost zen under unbearable weight to tolerate

.. . until the eyes moisten again.

as a people, we have all just been chained together in change    again.

–  -   -

monday morning arrives and we take the kids to school. you can feel the hush in the hallways, teachers attempting to get the kids to speak their hearts and in turn offer some solace as only a needed authority type figure can administer. just the sound of their voice or their turn of phrase can alleviate some of the burden of what the world has changed into for the children.

on the way home it approaches the 09:00 hour for the president’s moment of silence for the nation to pay respect to the fallen. just as the clock in the car clicks to 9 o’clock, while listening to my broken sporadic radio there and the comfort local radio station and dj jim blackwood is attempting, it stops working.