Bessie Badilla moves on

Early this year, I wrote about how it was such a big blow to Bessie Badilla to have found out that she had malignant throat cancer last quarter of 2006. This discovery came practically just three months after husband Bambi del Castillo died in his sleep in their Connecticut home.

Bessie had to go under the knife last Jan. 4 and mercifully the operation was successful. But is she completely healed now?

Bessie recently flew in for the death anniversary of her mother, Teresa, and immediately we set a date for lunch at the Bulan Restaurant, which is owned by our good friend, art patron and book publisher Marlene Aguilar (sister of Freddie Aguilar).

I was, of course, excited about meeting Bessie and especially since she chose for us to meet at Bulan (in Little Baguio in San Juan), which I just read about in the lifestyle section of The Star just last weekend.

At the ground floor dining hall — surrounded by Orientalia pieces that you can also buy — Bessie introduced me to her friends and one of them was brilliant psychic Paulie Caoili, who is consulted even by President Arroyo and Imelda Marcos regarding matters that cannot be answered by their respective political advisers.

Over a bowl of the best mushroom soup I have ever tasted in my life (it’s made of five different kinds of wild mushrooms), Bessie and I started catching up on each other.

From our talk, I discovered that she was given by her doctors in the US iodine treatments, but in the process discovered that she has gallstones in her gall bladder and nodules in her voice box. To her relief, these are not malignant and not cancerous. She has the option to go through another surgery, but — according to her doctors — if she’s not in pain, they’re not touching her anymore.

Bessie says she is not bothered by her present medical condition, except for the fact that her voice tends to get hoarse. She had been advised, in fact, by her doctors to avoid talking as much as possible. For somebody like Bessie who likes to talk — “that is my biggest punishment!”

During our conversation, I noticed that when she gets excited her voice falters — “at nagiging ka-boses ko na si Demi Moore,” she laughs.

For that late lunch at Bulan, we had to defy doctors’ orders because it was a reunion and we had to talk. Sure, we could have just looked at the lovely interiors — the cathedral ceiling and hardwood floors carefully preserved from the old mansion that it was — but somehow we had to talk.

For one thing, I had to ask about the children. Eldest daughter Isabel, who grew up with Bessie starting when the girl was seven, finished her studies in History and now lives with her Del Castillo grandparents in Vancouver, Canada. (Isabel’s biological mother, actress Hilda Koronel, had migrated to Los Angeles — I was told by my Manila sources.)

Blanca is in fourth-year college majoring in Art History — with Asian Studies as minor. She is graduating cum laude from the prestigious Holy Cross College in Massachusetts and may proceed to NYU for her masters.

Youngest Inez is in 7th grade at the Greenwich Catholic College. She is here with Bessie on this vacation and is growing up to be a beauty.

Last May 28 — on the first death anniversary of husband Bambi — around 50 of their friends and family members (there could have been more except that it was Memorial Day and many went out of town to go on holiday) gathered at the St. Agnes Church in Greenwich for a solemn Mass. Later, 55 white balloons (signifying Bambi’s age when he died) were released outside the church.

Immediately after the church rites, everyone gathered at the Del Castillo home in Stamford. It was potluck and all Bessie had to prepare was leche flan. But oh it was a feast because people brought all of Bambi’s favorite dishes: Lumpiang shanghai, tilapia sa gata, laing, baked salmon, binagoongan, pinakbet and one whole lechon that was brought there all the way from New Jersey. Aside from the leche flan, there was also Bambi’s other favorite desserts — cuchinta and cassava cake.

Bessie still misses Bambi — and so do the kids. But they do realize that they have to move on. At the moment, Bessie is preoccupied with a new project. No, it doesn’t have anything to do with modeling. It’s a big one — international in scope — but it’s still under wraps and I am not at liberty to tell you yet. Just wait and see — you’ll soon read about it here soon, very soon.