Annabelle gets a garden for her birthday

Annabelle Vassallo, the cancer patient whose faith and courage captured the public’s imagination in her last days, will soon have a garden named after her outside her native Siġġiewi.

Yesterday, which would have marked Annabelle’s 40th birthday, the Resources and Rural Affairs Ministry announced that an old pig farm close to the Providenza chapel in Siġġiewi will be turned into a meditation garden.

“This open space will provide a peaceful haven for those who seek it,” a spokesman for the ministry said.

Ms Vassallo died of cancer on January 24, some four years after being diagnosed with the terminal illness.

The garden, plans for which are still in their infancy, might not be the only place named after Ms Vassallo, as the street naming committee is reconsidering a request made by the Siġġiewi local council to name a street in her honour.