The couple to watch tomorrow!

The world is awaiting the royal wedding tomorrow. Media is full of all sorts of news: which officials got invited, what cake they will have, what dress the bride will wear, she is doing her own make up? Why?

In the world of wars in Libya, Afghanistan,..., radiations in Japan, unrest in Syria, tornado in Alabama,...the world wishes to escape it all, crawl into a fairy tale story of a prince marrying a regular girl, the girl becoming a princess, and feeding girls the princess stories. Fashion, music, festivities, and all the glamor coming with it are fun and nice to watch. I love celebrations, creation of beauty, demonstrating and performing arts, I will probably watch parts of it myself. However, I do not think the royal young couple are the couple the world should set their eyes on tomorrow.

I beg to differ. Tomorrow, the world should be watching a different couple, learning from them, admire and cheer for them, celebrate them, and make them their kids' role models, not princes and princesses who are born royalty or become royalty by association. Rather those who reach for the stars despite all barriers and odds, who stand next to each other till death sets them apart. I am talking about the all American couple Senator Gabriell Giffords and Captain Mark Kelly.

It was less than four months ago, on January 8, 2011, that Senator Gabriell Giffords of Arizona was shot in the head while having a town hall meeting with her constituents on a weekend. Captain Kelly, her husband, was supposed to fly on STS-133 but the incident made him leave training and preparations at Huston to be next to his wife in Arizona, where he was told she might have 4-6 months to live. He did not fly with that mission. Every day he was next to her silent body, that eventually opened her eyes one day, communicated with her husband by rubbing his wedding band, telling him she knows him, loves him, she kept the tradition of defying odds, and encouraging her husband to continue making dreams reality.

Tomorrow, he will be the Captain of STS-134, the last flight of Endeavor, and his wife, miraculously and constantly improving, flew to Florida to be there at KSC and send him away, along with president Obama and 40,000 or more people at KSC, and the nation and hopefully the world watching them. I will be watching the launch from our auditorium with our own Senator Mikulski. I encourage you to watch history on Friday 3:47 pm EST on NASA TV too. The couple to watch tomorrow is not the royal couple, it is Mark Kelly and Gabriell Gifford, dedicated to their goals and ideals next to each other, moving forward!

Related:
Obama's moving speech at a nice ceremony for Arizona victims few days after the event (although I could not get the audience cheering at the beginning when people were killed and shot and mourning):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztbJmXQDIGA