Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords made a surprise return to the Tucson grocery store where she was wounded in a deadly mass shooting on January 8 last year, as the city braced on Saturday for the event's somber anniversary.
A gunman toting a semiautomatic pistol pumped bullet after bullet into the crowd gathered for a congressional outreach meeting outside the Safeway store in northwest Tucson almost a year ago.
Giffords, who has been in rehabilitation in Houston for a gunshot through her head, returned to the store on Saturday evening. She was accompanied by her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, her office said.
"Gabby just visited the Safeway for the 1st time since 1/8/11," Kelly tweeted.
"It's been a tough year, but we're lucky to have so many people standing w/us," he added.
Giffords has only visited the southwest city four times since the deadly shooting spree last year that killed six people and wounded her and 12 others.
In another unannounced visit earlier in the day, Giffords hiked outside Tucson on a desert trail named for her slain aide Gabe Zimmerman, her office said, stopping briefly to talk to hikers.
The unannounced visits on Saturday came as survivors and residents of this close-knit city came together for walks, story-telling sessions and outdoor festivals ahead of the anniversary of the shooting on Sunday.
"The closer we get to Sunday, the more emotional it gets," said Bill Badger, a retired Army colonel hailed as a hero for tackling accused gunman Jared Loughner to the ground as he attempted to reload.
A few hundred people swayed to a steel band at Reid Park in central Tucson, at an upbeat music festival attended by Zimmerman's father, Ross.
"I'm finding this a really positive, uplifting day," Zimmerman told Reuters.
'Recovery and resilience'
A few miles to the north, several hundred people visited a trail to remember the youngest victim, 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, shot down at the Congress on Your Corner event.
Several of her school friends sketched pictures with chalk on the sidewalk. A message in a child's hand read, "Christina we miss you."
Giffords' spokesman Mark Kimble, who was standing near her when she was shot, said the anniversary was a challenge for the survivors.
"I think very often about it on Saturday mornings, especially this time of year when the weather is similar," he said.
Giffords, who has been undergoing intensive therapy at a Houston hospital since she was shot, will join a candlelight vigil at the University of Arizona on Sunday evening with her husband.
The event is expected to draw thousands of residents of residents of Tucson, a city of 520,000 people that many describe as a "small big town."
Also taking part in the vigil will be Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, Rabbi Stephanie Aaron and Dr. Peter Rhee, chief of the division of trauma, critical care and emergency surgery at the University of Arizona Medical Center, who treated Giffords and others who were wounded in the shooting.
Some survivors have chosen to talk about the traumatic events of the shooting. But Navy veteran Eric Fuller, who was shot in the leg and back a year ago, said he preferred not to dwell on the tragedy.
"I don't want to go on Dr. Phil and tell him how long I cried after I got shot," Fuller told Reuters.
Fuller said he would attend events including a church service and vigil on Sunday evening.
College dropout Loughner,23, was arrested at the scene of the shooting and charged with crimes including attempting to assassinate Giffords. He pleaded not guilty.
Found mentally unfit to stand trial, he is being treated in a federal prison hospital in Missouri.