Christina Taylor Green • 9/11/01 - 1/8/11 • May she rest in peace

from The Washington Post...and newser.com

Christina-Taylor Green's short life was pinned between two national tragedies: She was born on Sept. 11, 2001, and she died Saturday as a gunman apparently targeting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) shot 20 people in Tucson.

Christina-Taylor, a budding elementary school politician, was among those killed. The third-grader had gone to meet Giffords with a neighbor when a gunman, identified by authorities as 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, opened fire at a political meet-and-greet outside a grocery store. Christina-Taylor died at University Medical Center.

The 9-year-old, who had big brown eyes and long brown hair, had recently been elected to the student council at Mesa Verde Elementary School. She had been interested in politics early on, her father, John Green said Saturday night in an interview with the Arizona Daily Star.

She was a good speaker, athletic and patriotic, her mother, Roxanna Green, told the paper. Christina-Taylor was inspired by her birth on the day of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, her family said. She was one of 50 babies born on the date featured in a book called "Faces of Hope."

I hope you all know the words to the national anthem and sing it with your hand
over your heart...I hope you jump in rain puddles

"She was born back east and Sept. 11 affected everyone there, and Christina-Taylor was always very aware of it," her mother told the Star. "She was very patriotic and wearing red, white and blue was really special to her."

As a student council member, Christina-Taylor would have been a leader in her large school district. In the past, elementary school students who were elected to student councils had attended school board meetings and led the pledge of allegiance, said Jeff Grant, board president for Amphitheater Public Schools - a district of 15,000 students.

Grant described Mesa Verde, which has students from kindergarten to fifth grade, as a close-knit.

"It's just a tragedy that I think the entire community is in the grips of right now," he said.

Grant said that the school principal Foster Hepler and some of his staff spent Sunday emailing every Mesa Verde parent they could find an email address for to make sure they knew about the tragedy and to recommend that they talk with their children before Monday morning. There will be a crisis team at the school Monday, made up of the school psychologist and other mental health personnel from the community, he said.

Christina's dad, John Green, is a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers and her grandfather is former major league pitcher and ex-Philadelphia Phillies manager Dallas Green, according to ESPN.

The elder Green managed the Phillies from 1979 to 1981, winning a World Series title in 1980. He went on to manage the Yankees and the Mets.

Christina-Taylor shared her family's love of baseball. She was the only girl to play on Canyon del Oro Little League baseball team, the Pirates. She played second base, according to local news reports.

Both the Dodgers and Phillies released condolence statements. Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt said in a statement Sunday, "We lost a member of the Dodgers family today. The entire Dodgers organization is mourning the death of John's daughter Christina."

Christina-Taylor had one sibling, an 11-year-old brother named Dallas, and the two loved to go swimming together, her parents said.

"She kept up with everyone, she was a strong girl, a very good athlete and a strong swimmer," her mother said. "She was interested in everything. She got a guitar for Christmas, so her next thing was learning to play guitar."

Christina-Taylor had just received her first Holy Communion at St. Odilia's Catholic Church in Tucson, Catholic Diocese of Tucson officials told the Arizona Daily Star. Her uncle Greg Segalini told the Arizona Republic, "She was real special and real sweet."

The girl was already aware of the "inequalities" of the world, Roxanna Green told the the Arizona Daily Star. Christina-Taylor often repeated the same phrase to her mother: "We are so blessed. We have the best life."

Green added that she thought Christina had been hurt in a car wreck when her neighbor, who had taken Christina to meet Giffords, called to say they were on the way to the hospital. The 9-year-old was shot in the chest, and did not survive. “They tried to save her but she just couldn’t make it…I saw her right after that. I spent a lot of time with her, and I said goodbye to her." 

"I just want her memory to live on, she's a face of hope, a face of change," Green said. "Stop the violence, stop the hatred."