By Lissy Maruthanakuzy

Mr Stephen Andrade is a physically challenged man. His hands have a paralytic look. His neck and back constantly give him pain, and any movement of the neck gives him a feeling of imbalance.

Yet, his face widens into a smile when he speaks of his wife and children, who in fact, resuscitated him to a new life.

“In my office I was like a star,” Stephen recalled his days of employment. “When I told my boss I needed so and so boys for work, he would at once agree. Such was the trust I enjoyed,” he narrated.

Six years ago, Stephen, a marine mechanic employed in Qatar, met with a fatal road accident. He was unconscious for over three months. The company took good care of him in the hospital. However, they realized, he would not return to life. His wife and two children were in India, unable to reach out to him. Under much stress and pain his 16-year-old son, soon after his board exam, expressed his desire to meet his father, which was duly arranged by the company.

On his arrival he pleaded to see his father immediately. The nurse on duty took him to his father. He stood for a moment, watching his unconscious father. Tears flowed from his eyes. He longed to hear his father’s voice, longed to see him looking. Slowly he called, “Daddy,” expecting no response.

But, the father in his subconscious state recognized his beloved son’s gentle voice and gently opened his eyes for the first time after the accident.

The doctor’s called it a miracle. The love of his son had brought him back to life.

Soon the treatment took a different direction, not of abandoning the patient, but of restoring him to recovery.
“After three months of treatment in Quatar, he was brought to India, accompanied by a nurse,” Jannie his wife recounted. “He remained in bed for another six months unable to move.”

“When I gained my strength to walk, I did not know how to walk,” Stephen laughed, pain shadowing his eyes. “What I am now is because of my wife and children. Their love has given me a new life. They are not looking at what I can do for them; what they value is my presence.”

Jannie who lost her father at the age of nine smiles at Stpehen when he says, “She takes good care of me.”
“Many times people whom we have helped seem to forget us when we are pain and trouble, but God looks after us,” says Stephen who has had tangible experience of God in his life.

Stephen was working with Echie Rodon Company in Qatar.

“We were going by a boat we had repaired. My friend was at the steering. And we were sailing at a full speed. Out of joy my friend started dancing. The board turned. I was right under the boat. Because of the heavy shoes I wore, I could not swim. I felt I was going to die. Then the picture of my daughter came to my mind. “I said, God, is my daughter to grow up like her mother who lost her father as a young girl?” Again I tried to swim but failed. I was already about 5-7 feet down in the water. Suddenly I began to come up. Someone then pulled me by my shirt,’ Stephen who assisted in the formation and construction of Palm Island and Sheikh Rafi bridge in Dubai, recalled his God experience.

“Back in India I was worried how we would pay for the flat we had just purchased and all the medical bills. A miracle was happening when my worried son met the bank authorities. They told him you have nothing to worry, everything is taken care of by the father’s company. It was a moment of unspeakable joy,” Stephen recalled, tears filling his eyes.

Now I want to pass on my knowledge and skills to my son who is a mechanical Engineer, Stephen says. He is young and inexperienced. My friends cautions me not to send him to the gulf countries because there no ‘real life’. There one works for money, explained Stephen who had his experience in the Gulf.
Though he has not completely recovered, Stephen goes to the workshop, where his son works, mainly to get experience.

He is certain that, “God will help us to tide over this moment of pain and difficulties.”
My life is blessed with the two grandchildren, Stephen smiles again recalling the instruction of the grandson who constantly tells him, “Don’t go out, grandpa.”