ANNABELLE

Her full name is Annabelle C. Bernadas and is 2 ½ years old. Statistically, she is the seventh harelip patient that we have successfully helped through the sponsorship of the Christian Service International and the Ramiro Community Hospital and therefore no longer appear worthy of being chronicled in an article.

But her life and the circumstances surrounding her case simply cannot be ignored as a human-interest feature. Let me tell you her story as it unfolded before my very eyes from the very beginning.

Last August 31 at about nine in the morning, I was at our backyard leisurely separating the grains from the corncob when a female neighbor approached our gate asking for the missus. With her are a middle-aged woman, a twelve-year old boy and a girl with a congenital harelip. I nonchalantly replied that she is in church but will be back shortly and silently mused: “this is another job for Wonder Woman.”

Our neighbor narrated that she saw the girl at the Long Distance calling station and seeing her deformed lips asked her companion if the girl is her daughter and whether she would be interested to have her operated upon. The woman said that the girl is her granddaughter and on the second question said that she would. That was what brought them to our place.

Save for her inborn defect, Annabelle is an otherwise charming girl who was born in the metropolis last February 2001. To confound matters her mother died even before she reached her first birthday and her father, a jeepney driver, promptly got himself a live-in partner who already had two children who are older than Annabelle by a previous marital relationship. The arrangement apparently did not work out well (remember Cinderella with her stepmother and stepsisters?) and so her father brought her home to his own mother in an interior barangay in Guindulman last May in time for the annual fiesta. He left his daughter to his mother with the promise that he will return in July to take her back to the metropolis but apparently, it was a promise made to be broken.


The missus arrived from church and posed the usual questions and in fine she made the usual arrangements with the sponsor and the hospital. But it took Conchita, that’s the grandmother’s name, more than two weeks to get the needed verbal consent of his son and return to our place. Apparently, the mother also asked for financial assistance but since finance is a malady that is of worldwide affliction, instead received a reply from her son with the phrase: “Bahala na lang kayo sa apo niyo diyan!”

The operation was finally scheduled on September 18 but because of technical difficulties was only consummated the next day. Upon reaching home that night, the missus narrated that Conchita is an unlettered woman who could neither read nor write and therefore could not sign the required waiver for the medical operation such that she was even compelled to sign it herself. She also later called Conchita over the phone and instructed her to pass by our residence before returning home to their place so that additional instruction may be given her.

They did pass by our house the next day but there we learned that they checked out of the hospital without the needed clearance (AWOL, that’s the term for it) and therefore was not able to take with them the medicines needed to heal the wound. The missus was naturally upset because of the additional expenses involved but I cautioned her to be more tolerant as the grandmother is obviously ignorant of many things outside of her own world in her barangay. Calling the hospital, the missus learned that Dr. Ramiro is not available as he just left for Cebu City and that the required medicines are still in the hospital. Regretfully, I bought the medicines at the local pharmacy that the wound may heal. The hospital staff likewise confirmed .that the post check-up operation is scheduled a week later.

It’s now September 26 as this article is being written and the missus is again bound for Tagbilaran City on board her favorite van with Conchita and Annabelle all in a happy mood. The little girl, after all, no longer shows that ugly facial look and the Divine Architect willing, may even someday find her own Prince Charming in this rustic island that the aging lion and his tamer have made their permanent habitat!