Congresswoman Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly’s ABC News Special Interview with Diane Sawyer aired on Monday night. I haven’t seen the whole thing, but have caught clips of their moving interchange about Gabby’s “journey towards recovery” in various headline news stories. As so often is the case with national news stories, such as this one, its amazing how we can forget, at least temporarily, about these tragedies until those most affected resurface to share about their journeys since the fateful events.
Hearing about the interview with Congressman Giffords jogged my memory about a beautiful cartoon that I came across awhile back. A man named Jeffrey Koterba began following me on Twitter earlier this year and as I often do when someone new follows me, I clicked through to his website to learn more about him and his work. He has a unique approach to drawing and writing comics and I was especially struck by this one:
Mr. Koterba gives the back story about what inspired him to create this beautiful cartoon in this post on his blog. But in a nutshell, not long after the assassination attempt on Congresswoman Giffords he found out that a young girl named Christina Taylor Green, who was also shot that day and died, happened to be born on September 11, 2001.
In his blog entry Mr. Koterba writes about how the idea for this cartoon came to him and he went with it (as I often find myself doing with some of what I consider to be my best and most inspired writing). He also shares how touched he was to find out that his beautiful cartoon has made its way to Christina’s family. As a bereaved mother, I can only imagine how much something like this means to her loved ones, especially her parents.
I hope that Mr. Koterba’s creativity and inspiration in this beautiful cartoon will serve as another way for those whose lives were touched both by Christina and all those who died on 9/11/01 to honor the memories of their loved ones, as well as to help them work through their grief and heal.
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That is beautiful. Thanks for showing us.
I agree and you are welcome Jen.
It is as beautiful as it is touching and I am teary as I type this. It is just such a lovely and heartwarming thought that we would all be greeted in the great hereafter by a fireman.
Sweet!
I may have to link to his cartoon and blog on my FB wall as everyone should be touched by that sweetness.
IIWII – I am glad that it moved you and agree that it is good for others to see it.
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