HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - In a week of giving thanks, Joe Leahy starts another day by giving thanks, just as he has done almost every day since the shooting.
It has been 650 days since he and five other biology professors were shot during a faculty meeting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. For about 620 of those days, since he began to understand just how fortunate he was to survive, he has given thanks.
"It's a miracle," he says. "I'm happy to be alive every day I wake up. There is a deeper, fuller appreciation for life - much more appreciation than we did before."
And now, his appreciation has perhaps never been fuller.
For the first time since the shooting, Leahy is completing his first semester back in charge of his own class.
He's teaching general microbiology I to a class of a little more than 50, many of them juniors and seniors who are pre-med, pre-dentistry and pre-optometry students.
"It's good to be back with my people," he says.
About a month after the shooting, Leahy's wife, Ginny, helped him unravel the story of why he was in the Shepherd Center, a private hospital in Atlanta for patients with spinal cord and brain injuries.
Three of Leahy's colleagues died on the afternoon of Feb. 12, 2010. He and two other professors were wounded by gunfire from a fellow professor.
Amy Bishop, a biology professor, was arrested outside the school's Shelby Center, where Leahy and the other professors had been shot in a third-floor conference room. She was later charged with capital murder and attempted murder.
Leahy was in the intensive care unit at Huntsville Hospital for 21/2 weeks, then it was on to the Shepherd Center. After about two weeks there, Leahy began to comprehend the full story of the shooting. Immediately, there was sadness that he had lost three of his colleagues. But then there was the realization that he was lucky to be alive.
Among the students in the front row are Alison Levson, a senior biology major with a specialty in microbiology, and Lindsey Benton, a senior biology and chemistry major.
"He is not a quitter," Levson says. "He is going to keep going, no matter what. He has been an awesome example for me. So many people think they have problems. He has recovered - there's nothing wrong with him."
There are still challenges, most of them involving vision. With Leahy unable to see out of his right eye, he struggles to see the projection screen in his classroom.
He also now types lecture notes in a 36-point font instead of writing them, as he did before the shooting. With his injuries to the right frontal lobe of the brain, the part responsible for organizational skills, he has noticed difficulties in organizing the class.
But now at the end of the semester, his students can't detect a problem.
"He's just as sharp," Benton says. "He doesn't miss a beat."