Last year around this time a friend was involved in a very bad road accident. The car that she was driving got almost run over by a truck. She had a severe head injury, was bleeding profusely and went into a coma when they airlifted her to the hospital. The doctors thought she would not make it. They asked her friends to inform her parents in India --that they should come over to see her for the last time.

Somehow managing the bureaucratic red tape in the visa office in India, her mother came to the US for the first time to see her daughter--in critical care in the local hospital. I was told that the situation was so grave that Anita was moved to the Shock and Trauma center in downtown Baltimore after a day or two. That was when I went to see her. It was a ghastly sight. Her face was swollen, she had black eye, there was clotted blood all over her forehead and nails, they had restrained her arms and she twisted in her sleep as if commanded by some unearthly force.

Then I saw her mother for the first time. She was reading a small prayer book. She looked up as we introduced ourselves, smiled and told us everything that had happened right from the time that she came into the country. I listened to her for a couple of minutes and excused myself to go outside and passed out. Later on the nurse asked me if I was nauseous. I said I would be OK. I watched Anita for a long time from outside the room and afterwards came back home.

I visited Anita again the following day and saw her mother interact with Anita's friends from the university, the doctors, nurses, speech therapists, her Ph.D supervisor--with utter patience and faith. She kept telling the nurses not to tie Anita's hands as we were around and would take care if she should get violent. She sat by Anita and kept talking to her all the time as if she could hear every word. Sometimes Anita would nod or shake her head out of coincidence and a tear would fall from my eye. Her mother's eyes however held only FAITH. It was as if someone whom she trusted the most, had told her 'your daughter will survive this and get out untouched'.

The next day, my heart lurched when I saw the empty bed at the hospital, but they told me Anita was at surgery. They removed blood clots and dead tissues and fixed whatever they could inside that precarious jumble of nerves and veins that we call the brain. Anita continued to remain in a coma. I returned home that night fearing the worst. What would happen after the surgery?

I found Anita in another bed, in the same comatose state the next day--the only difference was that her head was now literally sawed in half and glued back again with a 100 staples. I was speechless seeing her and doubly speechless seeing her mother. The same beatific smile, the same confidence and faith oozing out of her being. I wished I could see what she was seeing.

Soon afterwards they took Anita to rehab as the Trauma center had done what they could. I could not see her after that.

One evening, almost a month or more later, I called Anita's mother's cell phone number with much trepidation, to ask how she was doing. She answered the call. In the same peaceful voice she said "Beta, Anita is getting better. She has come home. I told her 'Anita, do you remember Julie? She had come to visit you when you were in a coma in the hospital'. And Anita replied "Julie, yes I remember her, she sings well". I wished her mother well, hung up the phone and cried.

Later still I heard from friends that Anita was getting better, her memory was coming back and that her mother had returned to India.

Today, after 10 months, I wrote to Anita to say that I remembered her, wished her recovery, that I remembered her mother's unwavering faith all through the trauma, that I had great respect for her mother and hoped that one day I could be like her in the face of adversity.

I got a reply from Anita in 10 mins saying that she was doing just fine, back at school and working again at completing her Ph.D--which she would have defended this Jan. She owed her life to friends like us who prayed for her. She also mentioned that it was her mother's birthday today and that she would forward my mail to her as a gift.

I read her letter over and over again--tearfully. I thought of the miracle that I had witnessed. I thought of her mother's tremendous faith. I thought of the twists of fate and destiny. I thought of God. I thought of the doctors that had saved her life. I prayed for Anita and all.