TUCSON — Less than a week after the deadly mass shooting that left six dead and 13 injured, Tucson began to bury the dead Thursday.
The first funeral from Saturday’s shooting was for the youngest victim, Christina Taylor Green, a 9-year-old girl who was born on Sept. 11, 2001, the day of the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
The U.S. flag that flew atop the World Trade Center was displayed at the funeral, linking the two tragedies that served as parentheses enclosing the brief span of the child who has become a symbol of how violence can shatter a life.
Hundreds of mourners lined the roadway leading to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church, where the funeral began Thursday afternoon. Many wore white and carried a single rose.
“I felt I had to be here to pay my respects,” said David Johnson, 38, of Phoenix. “It was something I felt really strongly about. It hits really close to home.”
According to the program, Bishop Gerald F. Kicanes led the service, a Mass of resurrection. Readings included Psalm 23 and John 14:1-6.
The University of Arizona choir performed, as did a piper, who played “Amazing Grace.” The front of the program had a picture of a smiling Christina wearing a tiara. On the back were the lyrics to Billy Joel’s “Lullaby,” with its haunting lyric, “Good night my angel, now it’s time to sleep.”
Christina, the daughter of a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball scout and the granddaughter of noted former baseball manager Dallas Green, sang in her church choir and was an athlete. She loved dancing, gymnastics and swimming, and wanted to be the first woman to play major league baseball, President Barack Obama said Wednesday in his tribute to her and the other victims and heroes of the shooting.
“She showed an appreciation for life uncommon for a girl her age,” Obama said in what became a eulogy for Christina and a plea for national harmony.
“I want to live up to her expectations, I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it, I want America to be as good as Christina imagined it,” the president said.
Her funeral will be followed today by the funeral of federal Judge John Roll, who was killed alongside Christina. Roll had left Mass and stopped by to see Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a friend, when the shootings occurred.
Christina was buried in a red oak casket made by Trappist monks from Peosta, Iowa. The New Melleray Abbey has been making caskets since 1999 and donates caskets for families who have lost children.
En route to the church, there were a few dozen people wearing large white angel wings, initially created to block the family from seeing protesters from Westboro Baptist Church. The church agreed not to protest Green’s funeral after two radio stations gave it airtime to broadcast its extremist beliefs.
