There are fewer than 80 women in the US House of Representatives.  Some of them are moms. Most of them are women on a mission to do what they think is right for America and for generations to come.  It is a small club of women in Congress and this weekend they were struck by the violence of an attack on one of their own.

An alleged madman opened fire and took the lives of six people, but began with a targeted shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabriel (Gabby) Giffords. The news has rocked America, especially touching families with the senselessness of it all–in a shopping center on a Saturday afternoon.

One of Working Mother’s Most Powerful Moms in Congress, Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) was interviewed on NBC’s special report on the Tragedy in Tucson, updating the horrific events of the weekend and elaborating on who Rep. Giffords is as a person.

Rep. Wassersman said Congresswoman Giffords, a proponent of health care reform, is a woman with “an open heart. She treats everyone as if they are special. She loves her husband with all her heart and her stepdaughters.”

Giffords has been married for 3 years to a NASA astronaut, who has three girls.

“This is someone devoted to her husband and to her family; and dedicated to making this world a better place,” said Wasserman of her friend and colleague on Capitol Hill, as she lay in Tucson’s University Medical Center under the care of physicians.

At the same time, a 9-year-old girl who might have become a Congresswoman one day, died in that parking lot. Christina Taylor Green's parents, in their pain, spoke with TV interviewers about the little girl they were so proud of. She wanted to meet her Congresswoman on Saturday to learn more about how our government works.  Her parents, John and Roxana Green, told NBC "she was very patriotic." She recently ran for class office in 3rd grade and won. She told her father she wanted to be the first woman Major League Baseball player, a sport that runs in the family.

"You don't expect your daughter to be shot in a Safeway shopping center," said her dad, in a good area so close to their home. Her mom got a call from a friend to come to the ER. "You hold out hope...  When they came in, they told me they tried their best but... she passed away." 

In her grace, Christina's mom honored her daughter by telling her short story, the story of their little girl who was born on 9/11/01.