Chris Smith: The bell tower honoring Nicholas Green serves as site of sister’s wedding

In Bodega Bay this past Saturday, a typically cloudy and just-breezy-enough day, Eleanor Green was married alongside the bell tower that memorializes one of the best big brothers ever.

Eleanor is 28 years old and a high-school history teacher in Los Angeles. She was 4 when the utterly unthinkable happened.

You probably remember it, especially if you lived in Sonoma County in 1994. But the story made headlines and broke hearts everywhere.

Eleanor and her brother Nicholas, 7, were asleep in the backseat of their well-traveled Bodega Bay family’s rental car when a second car came alongside on a dark highway in southern Italy.

At least two gunshots burst from that car. Eleanor and Nicholas’ father, Reg, sped away from it. He has said, “I thought if we did stop we would be completely at their mercy.”

When Reg was at last able to pull over safely, he and his wife, Maggie, discovered that Nicholas, a bright star of a boy fascinated by all sorts of things, certainly by ancient Rome and by the bits of shell and bone he’d pocket at the beach, wasn’t conscious. A bullet had struck his head.

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THE WORLD CHANGED days later when Reg and Maggie Green made the harrowing choice to donate Nicholas’ vital organs and his corneas to seven Italians, four of them ailing teenagers.

People throughout Italy and far beyond were staggered by the shooting of the child and by the grandeur of his parents’ act of compassion. And they re-examined their attitudes about organ donation.

What became known as The Nicholas Effect saw a tripling of such donations in Italy. News stories, a book by Reg Green and a for-TV movie starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Alan Bates ignited more conversation about why so many people wait desperately, often terminally, for organs for transplant.

Across Italy, more than 120 places and landmarks - parks, schools, gardens, monuments, squares, streets and at least one lemon tree, bridge and amphitheater - were named for Nicholas to honor him and the healing effect of his gift.

His parents never sought vengeance but only justice following the arrests and ultimate convictions of the Mafia-connected young thugs, Francesco Mesiano and Michele Iannello, who chased the Greens’ rented car 24 years ago and fired shots in an apparent robbery attempt.

The Daily Beast reported not long back that Mesiano served his prison sentence and is now free, and Iannello, having turned state’s evidence against other mafiosi, is on house arrest.

Reg once lamented, “There are two young men who’ve had their lives totally ruined because they took the wrong path.”

The child whose life the pair ended is buried in the hillside cemetery in Bodega.

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ELEANOR GREEN KNEW that her late brother would be integral to her wedding to Matt Burgette, who does sound recording for films, TV shows and commercials.

Eleanor told me earlier this year, “Nicholas has served as an inspiration for so many people around the world, but to me he’s still simply my big brother and I want him there on one of the most meaningful days of my life.”

The idea came to her fiancé to hold their wedding not only in Bodega Bay, where Nicholas grew up and where his family lived until a move to Southern California in 2004, but alongside the bells.

People from all over Italy donated bells for inclusion on a memorial tower designed by Bay Area sculptor Bruce Hasson. Dedicated in 1996 at the Bodega Bay Community Center, just off Highway 1, the tower holds 140 bells. Its centerpiece bell came from the foundry that makes bells for the Vatican, and was blessed by Pope John II. It’s engraved with the names of the seven recipients of Nicholas’ organs.

Among the names is that of Andrea Mongiardo, who lived with Nicholas’ heart in his chest for 23 years and died from complications of cancer just last year, at 37.

The central bell bears also the name of Maria Pia Pedala, who was desperately ill when a transplant gave her the Bodega Bay boy’s liver. Maria recovered, married, gave birth to a son and named him Nicholas.

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ELEANOR AND MATT posed beneath the memorial, officially the Children’s Bell Tower, and recited their vows before family and friends seated around it. It was the ideal occasion for the Green family to return to Bodega Bay and quite purposely include Nicholas, who’d be approaching his 31st birthday in September were he still alive, in a milestone event.

His father, Reg, a former financial journalist who still writes a column for a weekly paper in Los Angeles, spoke of Nicholas in his remarks to the wedding party.

Reg continues to dedicate his life to sustaining his son’s legacy by encouraging people to consider organ donation, both for themselves and in the event of a family tragedy.

Nicholas’ mom, Maggie, designs and creates costumes for the Pacific Opera Project. Accompanying her and Reg back to Bodega Bay were their 22-year-old twins, Laura and Martin, who never met Nicholas but know him well.

Their sister the bride said it was good to be back in Bodega Bay, where she’d spent her first four years looking up to Nicholas.

The weather wasn’t picture-perfect for the wedding, Eleanor said, but the coastal haze wasn’t bad and there was just enough wind to coax the tower bells to chime.

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com