The Ottawa Journal from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • Page 83

she does. 1' Mercedes pants and draws every 7 day. At right, her teacher, Mrs. Huguette Lebkmc, looks at her coloring book. Below is ontf 7 ner paintings, signea.

2 Once she painted a girl without arms on a horse. v-vc. v-. MERCEDES BENEGBI 5 Continued from preceding page "But where are the cars?" you ask. "Well," she says with, mock indig- nation, "I painted roads.

Not cars." Mercedes takes a brush in her tittle right hand and shows you how she -paints. The hand is so short that by -the time it gets to the paper, her face is almost touching the table. She paints and draws almost every day and fills her surfaces with colored children and animals and trees. The joy of a healthy six-year- old seems to jump out of every work Then suddenly you come across a picture of a girl on a horse and you can't see her arms. A arc the arms? you immediately regretting the question.

"You cant see them," she replies; matter-of-factly, "because she has her hands in her pockets." 'i She likes' to paint with her own hands. But, curiously enough, she painted the armless girl on the horse while wearing her prosthesis. 7 Mercedes, first real awareness of her deformity developed when she was four years "old. "She came to me one morning," her mother recalls, "and said, 'God gave all my friends arms. Why did He not give tbem to me?" The next few months were heartbreaking for the Benegbis.

Mercedes was constantly examining her hands. "Why do I have such small 4 W0tktnd UagmtUm frb. 15. YM 1 4 a 7d1 II she" would ask. Her deformity both- ered her particularly when she was taking a bath at night and found she couldn't reach her toes.

Then one day she watched a magician perform 7on television. After, the show, she told her mother she wanted to visit him. "Maybe he could give me she urged. c'i-. "The psychologists had told me that the only way to answer a ques- tibn was truthfully," Mrs.

Benegbi recalls. "So I said to Mercedes, 'Ma- gicians do They can't give you arms. 7 Accepting the fact of her deformity was a gradual thing for Mercedes and even today, she goes through periods of resentment Sometimes now she will stand in front of a mirror, look at herself seri- ously and say to her mother, "I don't like my On other occasions, she asks her mother to kiss her hands and then asks, "Do you like my little hands? Do you really like them?" Mrs. Benegbi kisses them and replies that she does. And Mercedes is pleased, But for the Benegbis, the story of Mercedes is not a sad one.

It is one of happiness and hope. is so feminine," Mrs. Benegbi says. "She dabs on a little perfume when she. goes out.

And her clothes! She is so particular." There is a new little red dress on -the coffee table in the living, room and beside it a mound of white frilly ma- Charlto Kino WMiktnd Mooozin terial. "The dress was too plain," she says. had to agree to put a frill down the front." (Most of Mercedes dresses are made for. her because she needs sleeves that end just below the shoulders.) Mercedes listens intently as her mother But then she breaks into a giggle. She has just bered something that happened at school and she wants to tell the story.

Her prosthesis is hung J. from a plastic shoulder jacket- (which she wears under a long-sleeved smock) and is powered by bottled gas at- tached to the jacket. Under the sleeves, her real hands move freely and by touching various push-buttons she can raise her mechanical arms, turn over the hands and clench or unclench the metal finger claws for picking up or. releasing such things as pencils. There; is a slight hissing sound as she presses the buttons (something like air coming out of a balloon)' and this is the basis of her story.

"My friend Jean never, heard this noise before," shesays. "He. says to the other kids, 'Hey, Mercedes is deflating It pleases Mrs. Benegbi that her daughter is able to see the funny side of things. "She chatters all the time' when she is home," she says.

"When, she's not chattering, she's humming something she likes from the Tijuana Brass. She is so active, so involved in everything. She wants to be a part of things." Mercedes is fiercely independent and often resents the quick, spontaneous efforts of her mother to come to her aid when a situation seems difficult "I still remember her when she was verv small." savs Mrs. Benegbi. "Her face was so often bruised and crrntrJwI When shf.

IVII he alwav bit her face. She had no arms to stop' herfalL" You see the independence when she tries to open a door and has to press her face to it to get her hands on the knob. Her mother hurries to "No. no. no.

I can do it mvself." And usually she doevvir'V'r''' Ynn it tn the kitrhrn when 1h has trouble getting a glass to stand up straight She works at it quietly for a time. Then," in desperation, she "Mon Dieu, que je suis done fouer (Lord, how crazy. I am!) And she finally sets the glass up properly. i You "see it, too, when she goes shopping with her mother at the supermarket She insists on picking the cans from the shelves and placing them in the cart Then suddenly she is off inspecting a towering pyramid display of I canned 'goods and her mother becomes alarmed. "If she touched display and the cans tumbled i down on her, what ever would she do?" she aslcs." y'-.

The task she finds most difficult is snow-shovelling. She manages to push the shovel but then can't lift it Highly annoyed at her inadequacy, she then" kicks the underside of -the shovel and scatters the snow. Rehabilitation people are anxious for the thalidomide children to participate as much as possible in everyday activities. And in this respect the Benegbis have given Mercedes full scope. She is totally involved in everything concerning the.

household. Like most six-year-olds, Mercedes seldom thinks of her. earlier years. She no longer asks to -see a magician. But every now and then, she is curious about the future.

Sometimes late at night when the house is quiet and her mother is sitting beside her on the bed, she talks about the problems of adults. About marriage and babies particularly. you think it would be a good thing for' me to get she asks. "Well, some people are very happy when they are married," Be- nMfu rmwllm A nil Mm, 14 nMint never get married and are very happy, too." And sometimes Mercedes asks a very difficult question. "If I had a baby, how would I be able to carry it around?" i.