2-Year-Old Girl Lives On in ‘Mermaid’ : Television: Disney animators introduce a new character based on Gabriella Angelina Bommino, who died of leukemia last year.

When 2-year-old Gabriella Angelina Bommino died of leukemia last November, her parents despaired that “we would never know what our daughter would look like when she was older,” her mother, Antonietta Bommino, said.

Through the work of Disney animators, however, the Bommino family, along with a national television audience, on Saturday will see an artist’s impression of what Gabriella would have looked like as a teen-ager. The studio combined plans to introduce a hearing-impaired character in its CBS cartoon series “The Little Mermaid” with a tribute to the little girl who may have been mermaid Ariel’s biggest fan.

“We didn’t have a name or a face for the character, and when we heard about Gabriella, it all fit together,” “Little Mermaid” writer and producer Patsy Cameron said.

Using a photograph, animators took the girl’s features and made them those of Ariel’s new friend, who was named Gabriella in her honor.

The Bomminos, devout Catholics who live in Vista, see the event as “a way the Lord is showing us what she would look like,” Antonietta Bommino said.

For five months last year, while she endured painful bone-marrow tests and treatments, Gabriella watched the 1989 animated “The Little Mermaid” feature three or four times a day. It so happened that she was being treated at Children’s Hospital in San Diego and that Cameron had done volunteer work there as a teen-ager. Late last October, Cameron decided to visit the hospital and called the Child-Life Program offering to bring copies of a children’s book she’d written and “Little Mermaid” mementos.

“I immediately thought of Gabriella,” Child-Life program specialist Kathy Blue said. “I watched the movie so many times with her. She knew all the lyrics to the songs and could sing along with them and would dance to the tape.”

By the time Cameron arrived at the hospital, however, Gabriella had been sent home to spend her last few days with her family. She died Nov. 17.

“That Friday she came home, the Make-a-Wish Foundation had a party for her, with everything to do with ‘Little Mermaid’--every gift you could imagine,” Bommino said. “She continued to watch the tape over and over again. She sang and danced every day up until a week before she passed away, but even then she would still try to sing along.”

Meanwhile, Cameron and her partners, Tedd Anasti and Jamie Mitchell, were so moved by Gabriella’s story and her affection for “The Little Mermaid” that they decided, with the Bomminos’ permission, to incorporate her in their series.

Antonietta and Gino Bommino, who have two sons, have not watched “The Little Mermaid” since Gabriella died, but they’ll be in front of the set for Saturday’s telecast (at 7:30 a.m. on Channels 2 and 8).

“We’ll all be watching,” Antonietta Bommino said. “My whole parish, a very big church, was very involved with helping me throughout Gabriella’s illness and when she passed away. And now everyone’s going to be watching Saturday morning.”