Two Years

(This post could use a little revising but I simply just wrote, stream of consciousness, how I feel)

Let me tell you a story.  This is the story of how I died.

In May of 2010, over two and a half years ago I stepped off of a stage with my hands held high.  No, it wasn't a theatre stage but instead it sat in the middle of field with thousands of onlookers and a bright sunny day beamed down.  The sun came from a deal that was made years before when Ronald Thomas made a deal with the devil to bring out the sun only on important days at the University.  With a diploma in hand I made my way off the stage and into a brand new world.  One, which I was a just like everyone else, unemployed.  A theatre major with a creative writing minor, the options were sparse to say the least.  

I couch surfed for the first few weeks and then found a home off of 8th street.  A nice quiet house where I could house my books and a very cheap blowup mattress.  Then I started applying for jobs.  Although I knew I wanted a life in theatre I also applied to many political positions with the thought that I wanted to work an election in 2010, because this one mattered!  I became a finalist with a job in the Tacoma-Seattle area after multiple interviews and was just a few days away from a campaign management position.  My first campaign as more than a grunt.  I was excited.  But then I received a phone call.  One from an old friend who needed a favor.  It turned out that a close friend of his, and an old acquaintance of mine was in need of workers down in Arizona.  They pay was pretty good for entrance work and they needed Field Managers.  I could run multiple grassroots elections for an entire section of the state.  I applied, was accepted, and drove down to Arizona a few days later.  

Looking back on that first phone call, my first day on the job, and my first campaign event on the 4th of July it feels like a lifetime ago and although only a few years have passed, it was a lifetime ago.  When I worked for that campaign in 2010 I was a different person, same face, same overweight exterior, same horse-toothed smile, but when I look at pictures from those days and all the ones previous, I don't recognize that boy.  He was a depressed child, a saddened and overworked young man, but there was a great deal on naivety and innocence across his face.  He believed in the best that the world can offer.  His cynicism was towards himself, not towards society.  That young man is gone.  He died two years ago today.

This is a story about myself, my life, and the event that altered it.  This story is not meant to demean those that have suffered far greater than I.  For the families and friends and former colleagues I know and to a degree can understand the pain that you have all suffered.  My loss is a minuscule effect in comparison to yours, but nevertheless it was felt my me and will always be felt by me.

On January 8th, 2011 Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords held a 'Congress on your corner,' event at a local supermarket.  This was a normal event for Giffords who was so kind to her constituents.  Taking time out of her busy schedule for conversation was not just part of her job description but was instead an honor and a joy that she felt for the people of her district.  As usual she set up a table and began talking with the people, her people.  

Around 11:20 or 11:30 I received a text message.  To this day I have no idea who sent it to me.  It read, "turn on the television."  I jumped out of bed, as by this time I was accustomed to sleeping until 12 or 1, rushed into my mother's bedroom and turned the station to CNN.  That was the last moment of my life.  The second the channel changed and I saw the screen, I died.  Not in some over dramatic way, but I was no longer the person that I was before.  I became someone else for a time.  Some being that didn't know his name, forgot how to tie his shoes, no longer slept, ate, or felt anything.  

I did not know many of the people who were shot.  I met Gabe Zimmerman a few times, Ron Barber a few times, and even met Judge Roll briefly at some event in Tucson.  But in that moment and many moments that followed I knew them instantaneously.  And for a woman who clung to life by single strands of muscle and brain tissue, I knew her unlike I have ever known anyone.  For one moment in time we were connected, her and I, and all of her staffers, and friends, and family.  And all of the people who watched, all the people who were shot, all the people of Arizona.  For one brief moment we were connected by our commonality in that we were all human and our darkest sorrow matched the deepest connection with our race.  Our heart beat slowly and we waited.

For months after that fateful day, I was no longer the same person I was before.  I suffered from the worst symptom that a human can have.  Not great fear or disgust, anger or resentment, sorrow or hate.  I became apathetic.  Things would happen, great things, terrible things, small and large and I would not care.  Each day the sun would rise and the sun would fall and I did not care.  In one moment a great sense of shock shattered my world and I had no idea if it would ever mold itself together again.  Eventually it did, but it was no longer the same shape.  That day was the watershed moment of my life, where I shed my skin of innocence and hardened my face against the bitter cold of life.  I became cynical, pessimistic, and I still suffered from a great deal of apathy.  

I watched my hero die on national television.  Someone who I aspired to be.  Someone who represented what I believed was the best in humanity.  Someone I could trust in a world of no trust.  Someone good.  

During the campaign I witnessed many things that I will never forget.  I was a part of something that is scorched into my memory.  We lost nearly every race in that campaign.  Even the ones that I wasn't working on officially, we lost those as well.  I was with my friend Mark Suagee and Kathy Suagee, candidate for Superior Court when the initial tally was being reported.  It looked grim but I knew I needed to get to Tucson so I bid them farewell and journeyed on to Tucson.  As I arrived in the ballroom the results were in for almost all of the races and we had been creamed.  Not just in our elections but in the nation.  The Democratic Party was in disarray.  I arrived just in time to watch Gabrielle Giffords take the podium for the last time I would see her in person.  She gave a rousing speech and then left the stage rushing off into the night to meet with lawyers and other politicians for an inevitable recount.  As I left the ballroom I got a glimpse of her face.  For the longest time that image has been stuck in my memory, it was the last time I saw her, as one of true anger.  She looked mad as hell as she went out, but now I know it was the same look I had seen many times before, my own anger changed my perception.  She was determined.  Some how, some way, she knew she would prevail.  And one week later she did.  One victory.  But it was the most important one.  And then two months later she was clinging to life in a hospital in Tucson.

I died not because I was so connected to the Congresswoman or because I felt like with her death it meant all my work was for nothing.  No, that didn't even factor in.  I died because with that shot to the head I no longer understood life.  Gabrielle Giffords was the single greatest Politician that I have ever met.  She was one of the greatest people as well.  She had an ability to truly care about governing as much as she cared about those who she governed for.  It was a nasty and terrible campaign but never did I see her lose herself.  I remember that towards the end of the campaign, the final week, Gabby came to our office for some teachers event.  It was the last time that I spoke to her.  She approached my desk and said, "I hear that some people on the campaign call you Papa," (It was my nickname) "What if I called you Papa?"  I was slightly stunned and before I could mount a reply she said, "Ok then, how are you doing today Papa."  Pause.  Pause.  She starred at me with a slight smile on the side of her face.  "No Congresswoman I think Grant will be just fine."  "So do I," she replied.  "Keep up the good work Grant."

Campaign Event in Douglas

Although the former was a slightly comical anecdote, the story I tell when I talk about Gabby the politician is always the same.  We had a campaign event in the lobby of a hotel in Douglas Arizona.  Douglas sits on the border between the US and Mexico.  We had a pancake breakfast and we were expecting around 50 people.  Hundreds showed up to the point where we were passed capacity.  And then the Congresswoman arrived.  Her speech was supposed to last ten or so minutes and then she would be off to open the Douglas headquarters.  She didn't start talking for over an hour.  Why?  Because she went around to each and every person in the lobby and talked to them.  If she didn't know them, she introduced herself, but most she knew and knew well.  Not in that political way that an aide reminds you who they are, no, she knew them on a very personal level.  I stood back in awe with a group of her staffers.  When one of them saw the look on my face she said, "That's just who she [the Congresswoman] is."

That was the Gabrielle Giffords that I knew.  In an instant it was wiped off the face of the earth.  Her caring smile, her understanding eyes, the way she always knew when something was wrong.  Gone.  And with it my entire world view.  If someone so good as Gabby were to be extinguished then how could I see the world the same way.  She was the best of us and then in an instant she was gone.

And then she was back.  The last thing I remember from that day was a text message from a former colleague and friend, Caitlin Brady.  "The news reports are wrong, she is still alive."  And so she was, and so she is.  

Today Gabrielle's recovery is remarkable, and although she has given up her post, her continued strive to get back to where she was is a true testament to the will of a human being.  Mark, her husband, and Gabby continue each day to learn a little more about themselves and the world they are surrounded by.  Today the two of them have launched a campaign against gun violence by creating an initiative PAC called Americans for Responsible Solutions.  A PAC that for once I am in full support of.

Congressional District 8 Team

And today, I am alive, if only barely, I am still kicking.  Sickness and injuries get me down, but so far I have managed to get back up.  I did die that day.  What I was ceased to exist and from the ashes rose another person.  One with similar characteristics but one that no longer has any innocence.  Hardened but not stone.  It has made me very pessimistic about politics, but at the same time rather optimistic about life.  Celebrating the here and now and not waiting until tomorrow.  Whenever I have a problem too large for me I think WWGD, What Would Gabby Do.  I don't know what the future will bring and how I will venture out into it.  But for now, on January 8th, 2013 I choose to remember six brave souls, a few heroes, and one courageous woman.  Thank you Daniel Hernandez Jr, Ron Barber, and always Gabrielle Giffords.

Judge John Roll

Gabe Zimmerman

Christina-Taylor Green

Dorwan Stoddard

Phyllis Schneck

Dorothy Morris

Rest in Peace.