Born on a tragic day, taken on another

Her smiling infant photo in a 2002 book about 9/11 babies, like the terrible irony of her short life's span, is almost too painful to contemplate.

Christina Taylor Green, who loved animals and volunteered at a children's charity, existed in the brief interlude between two great American tragedies.

Born in West Grove, Pa., hours after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the 9-year-old was killed Saturday in the Arizona massacre in which Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was critically injured and five others, including a federal judge, died.

"She liked having that birthday," the girl's mother, 45-year-old Roxanna Green, said from her Tucson home Sunday. "She thought it was a holiday when she was little. We had to set her straight."

In "Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 9/11," a book that spotlighted one child from each state, a wishful quote accompanied the black-and-white photo of the girl. "I hope you see rainbows," it said.

"From the very beginning," her mother said, "she was an amazing child. She was very bright, very mature, off the charts. She was the brightest thing that happened that day."

The Mesa Verde Elementary School third-grader — an A student and a granddaughter of former major-league baseball player, manager and front-office executive Dallas Green — had gone to the event with a neighbor because she recently had been elected to the student council and had an interest in politics, authorities said.

Her father, John Green, a supervising scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers, told The Arizona Star that Christina was such a good speaker that he "could have easily seen her as a politician."

Christina also seems to have inherited her family's baseball genes. She was on a Little League Baseball team, its only girl, her mother said.

"She was an athlete, a good dancer, a good gymnast, a good swimmer," her mother said. "She belonged to Kids Helping Kids charity and tried to help children less fortunate."

A slender girl with brownish-blond hair, brown eyes and a gentle smile, she also sang in the choir at St. Odilia Roman Catholic Church.

In an interview with Fox News, her mother explained how, in a call from her friend's husband, she learned her daughter had been injured and was at University Medical Center.

"I grabbed my son and called my husband — he wasn't at home — and we all just rushed over there," she said.

"We waited for a while, and then the surgeon and people from the ICU unit came in and police officers and other people, and they told us the bad news,' she said. "She had a bullet hole to the chest, and they tried to save her, but she just couldn't make it. It was really, really bad."

The neighbor was shot four times but survived.

Roxanna Green said she hoped Christina's death would bring not only justice in the jailing of her attacker but also a national awareness of the cost of a venomous political dialogue.

"I think there's been a lot of hatred going," she said, "and it needs to stop."

Indeed, the girl quickly became a flash point for some of the sorrow and anger that followed the mass shootings. Internet chat rooms were abuzz with talk of her death, and at least three Facebook pages honoring her attracted tens of thousands of visitors.

Dallas Green, 76, was on his way to Arizona on Sunday and could not be reached for comment. He had spoken earlier with the New York Daily News.

"It's pretty hard," he said before he and his wife departed a Caribbean resort. "We're all hurting pretty bad. I can't believe this could happen to any 9-year-old child, much less our own."

Green said he learned of his granddaughter's fate when, after seeing news of the shooting on TV, his wife phoned their son.