TUCSON, Ariz. — Christina Taylor Green, whose nine exuberant years began and ended with two of the most harrowing tragedies in recent American history, was laid to rest Thursday, her life cut short in a hail of bullets at a Tucson shopping center but her spirit remembered as fun-filled and loving.
At a service that mixed “Ave Maria” with Billy Joel and ended with the plaintive wail of a bagpiper playing “Amazing Grace,” Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas told the 1,800 mourners inside the church that Christina “wanted to make a difference with her life, to make her mark. She has done so in such a powerful way that even she could not have imagined.”
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He also cited the many “times” of her life — “she had a time to laugh, a time to dance, which she so loved, a time to live and a time to build. She had a time to outshine the boys in baseball…a time to hug her little black stuffed dog, to love animals, to swim with her brother Dallas, which she so enjoyed, to model and be in fashion, to be elected to the Student Council, to be a leader and represent her class.”
At the end of the service the Bishop also told the mourners, who included a number of Christina’s elementary school classmates and fellow Little League team members, that she had been an organ donor.
The only other speaker was Christina’s father, John, who spoke directly to his daughter and said, “I think you’ve affected the whole country.”
Outside the pink stone St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church, a mammoth US flag that survived the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center – the day of Christina’s birth– fluttered between the ladders of two Tucson Fire Department trucks.
As her family – her father, mother Roxanna and 11-year-old brother, Dallas – arrived for the service, they paused to look up at the flag under the crystal blue sky, gently rubbing each other’s shoulders. Then, all holding hands, they slowly walked beneath it and into the church, followed by other family members.
Minutes later, the hearse carrying Christina’s child-size coffin, reportedly made of red oak especially for her by Trappist monks in Iowa, pulled up in front of the flag. Her parents and brother re-emerged to accompany her as a family for one of the last times as the coffin was wheeled inside.
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No television cameras were allowed inside the church for the nearly 90-minute funeral Mass. Afterwards, the family again walked with Christina to the hearse, this time with young Dallas placing his hand on his sister’s coffin.
Christina, a brown-haired third grader, was the youngest victim of a shooting rampage Saturday outside a Tucson supermarket that gravely wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and killed six others. Jared Lee Loughner, a troubled 22-year-old loner, has been charged in the deaths.
Among the mourners at Christina’s funeral was Mark Kelly, Giffords’ husband and a NASA astronaut, along with her sister, Melissa. Also present were Arizona’s two Republican senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl.
After her death, from a gunshot wound to the chest, Christina was remembered as a spirited “Princess” – her father’s nickname for her – who had a kaleidoscope of interests including ballet, baseball (she was the only girl on an all boys team, the Pirates), swimming and politics.
She went to the shopping center that day with a neighbor specifically to see Giffords because she had recently been elected to the Student Council at her elementary school and wanted to learn more.
“She was very interested in politics since she was a little girl,” her mother told ABC. “I think that being born on 9/11 had a lot to do with that.” In fact, she appeared in a book “Faces of Hope” featuring a child from each state born on Sept. 11, 2001.
Sports talent ran deep in her family. Christina was the granddaughter of Dallas Green, who managed the Philadelphia Phillies, New York Yankees and New York Mets. Her father is a supervising scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
And aside from her not surprising prowess at baseball, Christina was also a gymnast and a swimmer.
But, her mother said, “she was a girly girl as well as a tomboy.”
The Arizona Republic reported she had a dollhouse, a boom box and an Audrey Hepburn poster in her bedroom. And this handwritten sign on her bedroom door: “Girls only. Back off boys. Girls rock.”