( CNN ) -- Gabrielle Giffords , the Arizona congresswoman who was shot in the head during a shooting rampage in January , appeared in her first television interview late Monday night , clearly understanding the questions put to her but able to respond only in simple words . `` I cried , '' she told ABC 's Diane Sawyer in response to a question about how she felt when her husband told her what had happened . `` Died , '' she said . `` Sad , '' said her husband , retired astronaut Mark Kelly . `` Sad , '' Giffords agreed . `` I cried . A lot of people died . '' She said she has no memory of the incident . `` That day is gone ? '' Sawyer asked . `` Gone , '' Giffords replied . Giffords also does n't remember the next 13 days at a hospital in Tucson before she was flown to Houston . She said she remembers the flight `` a little bit . '' `` She said she felt like a -- '' Kelly said . `` A zombie , '' Giffords said , finishing the sentence . Giffords also said she never got angry about what happened . `` No , '' she said . `` No . No . No . '' She paused . `` Life , '' she said , then shrugged . `` Life . '' Jared Loughner , 23 , is accused of wounding Giffords and 12 others and killing six people in the shooting at a meet-and-greet event for the congresswoman outside a Tucson , Arizona , shopping center . Giffords , a Democrat , posted an audio message to her constituents Tuesday on her Facebook page , saying she missed them and Tuscon : `` The mountains , the blue skies , even the heat . `` I 'm getting stronger , I 'm getting better , '' she says , adding that she wants to go back to work . She sat with her husband on a couch for the ABC interview , wearing a lime green jacket . She wore her hair short and smiled often . When Sawyer asked Giffords how she feels , the congresswoman responded , `` Pretty good . '' Sawyer asked Giffords if it was painful to move her right arm . Giffords said it was not . `` Difficult , '' she said twice , then grinned and swung her left arm . `` Strong ! '' she said , getting a laugh from Sawyer . `` Strong , strong ! '' Giffords was shot in the head , with the bullet passing through the left side of her brain , which controls the right half of the body . Her right arm lay unused on her lap during the interview . But before the interview began , she leaned over to fix Sawyer 's hair with her left hand . Giffords has made what doctors call a miraculous recovery since the shooting . Her neurosurgeon , Dr. Dong Kim , told CNN Tuesday that Giffords ' thought process is normal -- a remarkable feat for someone with the kind of injuries she suffered . As a sign of her stunning recovery , Kim told CNN 's Elizabeth Cohen that Giffords recently spoke two sentences in a row to him . `` Wow , you have a suit on today , '' she said to him when he walked in to see her . Then she added , `` What 's with the necktie ? '' The ABC report showed Giffords in therapy , struggling to come up with a word when asked what she would use to tell time . `` W ... . , '' the therapist prompts . `` Wwwwwwatch ! '' Giffords says , to the delight of the therapist . She and Kelly told Sawyer she did two hours of therapy a day in their home . Giffords has clearly retained a sense of humor ; her husband teases her when Sawyer asks what she loves by interjecting : `` Football ! Gabby loves the NFL . '' `` No , no , no , '' she giggles . `` Stinks ! '' Loughner is in mental health treatment and will be re-evaluated early next year to determine his competency to stand trial .
NEW : Giffords does n't remember the shooting , she says . NEW : Giffords felt like a `` zombie '' on the flight to Houston . NEW : Her neurosurgeon describes the stunning recovery to CNN . Jared Loughner is charged with wounding her and 12 others and killing six .