In Memory of Christina
January 10, 2011 by Judy Johnson · 2 Comments
This post is dedicated to the memory of Christina Taylor Green
student council president, beloved daughter, sister,
granddaughter, friend, Little League teammate,
and inspiration to many who never knew her.
_______
Christina Taylor Green.   Born 9-11-2001. Daughter of John Green, East Coast supervisor of amateur scouts for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and granddaughter of Dallas Green.  The only female player on her Canyon del Oro Little League team in Tucson, Arizona, she dreamed of one day becoming a veterinarian, politician, artist, or professional ballplayer.
I can say from experience that the routines and activities enjoyed by a nine-year-old girl are in many ways the happiest stretch of life for those who inevitably become women.   Many of us grow older only to look back upon the carefree girls we once were, feeling as if we are essentially that very same person, and wishing we could still play games on a simple field as if time hardly mattered, assuming that such days will last forever.  Sometimes we long to be a young girl just like Christina, running happily onto the field in spring or walking freely in the open air on a beautiful Saturday morning, a whole day and an entire life stretching before her . . . .
Remind us that baseball will never die, for its everlasting rhythms lie rooted in the soil and its passions in the smell of new grass, in the hot sunshine of the deepest summers, in the enduring chatter that ripples through the bleachers . . .
Above all, grant us boyhood and girlhood where in time’s soft reverie we are forever children, and where baseball shall dwell with us always, and where sharp grounders are eternally fielded in a new leather glove, and drives to deep center are ceaselessly ensnared in shoestring catches, and the wicked curveballs are met with two-run singles to left center to win the games in the bottom half of the ninth.
Willie Morris, A Prayer for the Opening of the Little League Season
Rest in soft peace, Christina.   And may baseball dwell always within you – just as Willie Morris prayed it would – and other joys too, even though you will not live on earth to see another Opening Day.
A very sensitive and deep article.
As I haven’t read much about this tragedy, it is the first I’ve seen Christina Green’s birth date. To have been born on such an awful day. To have had her life stolen from her by mad violence. There is a much deeper message here. Somebody, somewhere, must find the way to reduce the odds of this kind of horrific loss. Though the death of a young girl should be enough.