Braun: A little girl's journey for a sister in dire need leads to a bittersweet reunion

Wednesday Feb 22nd, 2012
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Braun: A little girl's journey for a sister in dire need leads to a bittersweet reunion

Mon, 12/26/2011 - 22:44 — admin

By Bob Braun/Star-Ledger Columnist The Star-Ledger

NEWARK — The smile was unexpected. The big, open, simple, genuine smile of a child who didn’t seem at all afraid she was meeting people she really didn’t know. Meeting them in the cold and dark cavern of an all but closed Newark Liberty International airport at nearly 2 a.m., after a long, uncomfortable flight from a warm place she never before left, a bumpy flight delayed for hours, her first flight ever.

The smile, and then the words in Spanish:

"I came to save my sister’s life," said Gisselle Bonilla, only 7.

That sister, her sister, Yarelis, was there, smiling, too, tightly holding Gisselle’s hand, now and then just squealing, overcome with delight. Two little girls, obviously knowing far beyond the ability of adults to comprehend, what is important in life.

Yet what is wrong with Yarelis was obvious to anyone who has ever had to see a child with cancer. Her head, smoothly bald from chemotherapy. Her face, pale and swollen. Rushing Christmas travelers, many wearing silly red Santa hats, noticed and looked sad to see such an obviously sick child.

Yarelis needs a bone marrow transplant to live and her sister is a perfect match. The perfect match Yarelis needs now.

"I am happy to see her," said Yarelis, 5. "We can play dolls." She offers Gisselle the Princess doll she has been clutching for hours. It is blonde and wears a purple gown.

Yes, the two sisters can play and enjoy Christmas together but, in a short while, maybe just a matter of days, they will be lying near to each at Hackensack University Medical Center, doing something very serious.

Gisselle will be donating her bone marrow to her sister. Yarelis’ doctor says it is the younger sister’s best hope of surviving the acute lymphocytic leukemia that threatens her life.

The meeting of the sisters was long overdue, delayed by the unimportant things adults care about, the things that mean nothing to little girls carrying dolls. It should have happened in September when members of their family and doctors at Newark Beth Medical Center and workers for the American Friends Service Committee asked the U.S. State Department for a visa so Gisselle could come here to help her sister.

But the American embassy in Gisselle’s home country of El Salvador denied the child a visa. Twice. Apparently afraid this beaming little child would somehow contribute to the immigration problem here in a country with 12 million undocumented immigrants.

It took the intervention of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), a request from the president of El Salvador, pleas from family members and, maybe, a foul-tasting dose of well-deserved shame, to wrest a 90-day "humanitarian parole" from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security so that Gisselle could do what she seems so willing to do: Save her sister’s life.

"It just seemed so simple,’’ says Getrudis Ramirez of Roselle, Yarelis and Gisselle’s grandfather. His mother, Anma Sanchez, accompanied Gisselle from El Salvador. "Yarelis is an American who will die without help from her sister. I can’t believe that would happen."

That sort of simple escapes some but is obvious to Gertrudis, an American citizen who just came back from a trip to Parris Island, S.C., where his youngest son Erik, only 18, just graduated last week from Marine Corps boot camp. "Americans care for each other, don’t they?"

Yarelis is an American, born here. Gisselle is not. Their mother Maria left El Salvador when her older daughter was less than a year old. leaving Gisselle behind. She now has a third child, a little boy, 3, who suffers from Down syndrome.

Why Maria did what she did, how she got here, what her status is—well, that’s not a simple story. And how complicated it is was written on her face when she first saw Gisselle, her oldest child, and burst into tears over the daughter she hasn’t held in more than six years.

"I am so happy to see her," said Maria. "She has grown up to be so beautiful."

Beautiful enough to want to save her sister’s life.

Related coverage:

• Braun: Red tape, suspicion delayed medical help for leukemia-stricken Elizabeth child

• Braun: Elizabeth girl will be able to receive bone marrow transplant from Salvadoran sister

• Braun: Strict U.S. immigration laws ignore life-and-death decisions in case of ill Elizabeth girl

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