CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - It was a moment that a few short months ago seemed so improbable: Rep. Gabrielle Giffords watched her husband power into space on the shuttle Endeavour. In person.
Still recovering from a devastating wound to the head, the Arizona congresswoman was at Kennedy Space Center on Monday to witness Mark Kelly and his five crewmates blast off and head to the International Space Station. She watched in private -- as do all crew families.
What had already been a historic event -- the second-to-last space shuttle flight and the last for Endeavour itself -- had become the Gabrielle Giffords-Mark Kelly saga after the Jan. 8 shooting.
Since the assassination attempt in her Tucson, Ariz., hometown, Giffords has been shielded from public view: during her two weeks in intensive care, her transfer to Houston, and the weeks since at a rehab hospital. Her doctors last spoke publicly about her progress in early March, and the only recent details have come from select interviews granted by her husband, staff, and those caring for her.
The night before launch, Kelly bid Giffords goodbye at the exclusive beachfront house the crew uses before launch. According to the Houston Chronicle, the two also exchanged wedding rings.
"Mark wanted a part of Gabby to go into space with him and Gabby wanted a part of him to keep here on Earth," Giffords spokesman Mark Kimble told the Chronicle.
The congresswoman's doctors say she has made "leaps and bounds" in what will be a long recovery. The bullet pierced the left side of Giffords' brain, thus affecting speech and movement on her right side. The Arizona Republic reported last month that she was speaking mostly in single words or declarative phrases, could stand and walk on her own, pushing a grocery cart through the rehab center's hall as therapy.
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