7:03
GG: Death row.
7:04
MK: Yes. Our first date was to death row at the Florence state prison in Arizona, which was just outside Gabby's state senate district. They were working on some legislation that had to do with crime and punishment and capital punishment in the state of Arizona. So she couldn't get anybody else to go with her, and I'm like, "Of course I want to go to death row." So that was our first date. We've been together ever since. GG: Yes.
7:36
PM: Well, that might have contributed to the reason that Gabby decided to marry you. You were willing to go to death row, after all.
7:43
MK: I guess.
7:44
PM: Gabby, what did make you want to marry Mark?
7:48
GG: Um, good friends. Best friends. Best friends.
7:54
MK: I thought we always had a very special relationship. We've gone through some tough times and it's only made it stronger. GG: Stronger.
8:06
PM: After you got married, however, you continued very independent lives. Actually, you didn't even live together.
8:14
MK: We had one of those commuter marriages. In our case, it was Washington, D.C., Houston, Tucson.Sometimes we'd go clockwise, sometimes counterclockwise, to all those different places, and we didn't really live together until that Saturday morning. Within an hour of Gabby being shot, I was on an airplane to Tucson, and that was the moment where that had changed things.
8:39
PM: And also, Gabby, you had run for Congress after being a state senator and served in Congress for six years. What did you like best about being in Congress?
8:51
GG: Fast pace. Fast pace.
8:55
PM: Well it was the way you did it. GG: Yes, yes. Fast pace.
8:57
PM: I'm not sure people would describe it entirely that way. (Laughter)
9:02
MK: Yeah, you know, legislation is often at a colossally slow pace, but my wife, and I have to admit, a lot of other members of Congress that I know, work incredibly hard. I mean, Gabby would run around like a crazy person, never take a day off, maybe a half a day off a month, and whenever she was awake she was working, and she really, really thrived on that, and still does today. GG: Yes. Yes.
9:25
PM: Installing solar panels on the top of her house, I have to say. So after the tragic incident, Mark, you decided to resign your position as an astronaut, even though you were supposed to take the next space mission. Everybody, including Gabby, talked you into going back, and you did end up taking.
9:44
MK: Kind of. The day after Gabby was injured, I called my boss, the chief astronaut, Dr. Peggy Whitson, and I said, "Peggy, I know I'm launching in space in three months from now. Gabby's in a coma. I'm in Tucson. You've got to find a replacement for me." So I didn't actually resign from being an astronaut,but I gave up my job and they found a replacement. Months later, maybe about two months later, I started about getting my job back, which is something, when you become this primary caregiver person, which some people in the audience here have certainly been in that position, it's a challenging role but at some point you've got to figure out when you're going to get your life back, and at the time, I couldn't ask Gabby if she wanted me to go fly in the space shuttle again. But I knew she was— GG: Yes. Yes. Yes.
10:31
MK: She was the biggest supporter of my career, and I knew it was the right thing to do.
10:35
PM: And yet I'm trying to imagine, Mark, what that was like, going off onto a mission, one presumes safely, but it's never a guarantee, and knowing that Gabby is —
10:47
MK: Well not only was she still in the hospital, on the third day of that flight, literally while I wasrendezvousing with the space station, and you've got two vehicles moving at 17,500 miles an hour, I'm actually flying it, looking out the window, a bunch of computers, Gabby was in brain surgery, literally at that time having the final surgery to replace the piece of skull that they took out on the day she was injured with a prosthetic, yeah, which is the whole side of her head. Now if any of you guys would ever come to our house in Tucson for the first time, Gabby would usually go up to the freezer and pull out the piece of Tupperware that has the real skull. (Laughter)
11:30
GG: The real skull. MK: Which freaks people out, sometimes.
11:33
PM: Is that for appetizer or dessert, Mark?
11:36
MK: Well, it just gets the conversation going.
11:41
PM: But there was a lot of conversation about something you did, Gabby, after Mark's flight. You had to make another step of courage too, because here was Congress deadlocked again, and you got out of the rehabilitation center, got yourself to Washington so that you could walk on the floor of the House -- I can barely talk about this without getting emotional — and cast a vote which could have been the deciding vote.
12:12
GG: The debt ceiling. The debt ceiling.
12:15
MK: Yeah, we had that vote, I guess about five months after Gabby was injured, and she made this bold decision to go back. A very controversial vote, but she wanted to be there to have her voice heard one more time.
12:28
PM: And after that, resigned and began what has been a very slow and challenging recovery. What's life like, day to day?
12:39
MK: Well, that's Gabby's service dog Nelson.
12:42
GG: Nelson.
12:43
MK: New member of our family. GG: Yes, yes.
12:46
MK: And we got him from a—
12:49
GG: Prison. Murder. MK: We have a lot of connections with prisons, apparently. (Laughter) Nelson came from a prison, raised by a murderer in Massachusetts. But she did a great job with this dog. He's a fabulous service dog.