As Surviving Twin Grows Stronger, Sister Is Buried

As a funeral Mass was held in Tijuana for Sarahi Morales and a priest assured her grieving parents that “little girls go to heaven,” doctors in San Diego on Thursday reported that her sister Sarah is continuing to grow stronger.

Despite the worldwide attention to the plight of Sarahi and Sarah, born Jan. 12 in Tijuana as Siamese twins and separated Saturday during delicate surgery at Children’s Hospital, the Mass was sparsely attended.

“I take comfort in knowing my two little girls are one,” said Maria Luisa Espinoza, 33, the twins’ mother. “I’m grateful to everyone in the United States.”

The twins’ father, Miguel Angel Morales, 30, and their godfather, Salvador Lopez, carried Sarahi’s small white casket adorned with pink roses down the steps of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church and into a white hearse for the slow, rainy trip to Monte De Los Olivos Cemetery.

The Rev. Jose Refugio Gloria, who officiated at the hourlong service, tried to console the parents, but the mother wept and the father trembled. Three of the couple’s four other children attended.

Sarahi, whom doctors had feared might not survive the separation surgery because of her deformed heart, died of cardiac arrest just an hour after the five-hour surgery to separate the twins’ abdomens, chests and livers and sever three arteries that connected their hearts.

Dr. Gail Knight, a neonatologist overseeing Sarah’s care, said her breathing and other vital signs are improving and she is responding to visits by her parents.

Doctors are hoping she will soon be strong enough to undergo an operation to rebuild her chest wall, using bone and tissue taken from Sarahi soon after her death, with the consent of the parents.

Donations have continued to accumulate at Children’s Hospital to defray the cost of the surgery and Sarah’s $2,000-a-day medical expenses. Blair Sadler, the hospital’s president, said about $10,000 in donations has been received toward the bill, which is $100,000 and rising. Miguel Morales, who makes $50 a week as a car mechanic, has no medical insurance.

Social worker Alicia Acosta said it has been difficult for the Moraleses to return to the hospital to visit Sarah, although they have done so daily. Each time they visit Sarah in the pediatric intensive care unit they are in the same room where they watched in horror as Sarahi died.

“It’s still hard for them to walk into that room and not see both girls,” Acosta said.

Times correspondent Paul Levikow contributed to this report.