I am sitting in the underground. A child about ten years old and his father sit by my side. The father asks: ‘What is what you would like most to do in your life?’ The child answers: ‘To score the goal that will make the Spanish team win in the world football championship.’

Noble endeavour. When I was asked at age ten what was what I most wanted in life, I had learned to answer: ‘To be a martyr for Christ.’

Noble endeavour again. And as distant from reality as the world football championship. But somewhat more useful. Christ had entered the programme, and that was what mattered. Martyrdom or not, his love was the issue. We used to speak a great deal in those days about the need to have an ideal in life, an aim, a goal, a star to show the way, to guide our steps, to give us strength to achieve it. And our ideal was Christ, his friendship, his love. Personal reading of the Bible was not common at the time, and nobody owned their own copy of the gospels, but that was what we were advised to do now as a new gesture, a bold innovation, a daring step for our time then.

The mass at the time was still in Latin and in a low voice, so that one didn’t come much in contact with the Bible directly, although we did know its more common passages as the parables and the sermon on the mount, the passion, and the apparitions. But never a direct personal reading. That was a novelty. That was how I came to but my first copy of the gospels and I read them eagerly. I read for the first time Jesus’ dialogues with his disciples at the Last Super followed by what we call his priestly prayer in the chapel before the tabernacle, and I’ll never forget the impression they caused on me. I felt even bodily heat, the beating of my heart, the thrill of being in contact with something unique, divine, definitive, supernatural. That was heaven. I was left with a nostalgic feeling for that moment which later in life I was able to identify when I read Fernando Pessoa’s ‘The Book of Unease’. In it he tells about the impression caused on him by the Portuguese Jesuit Antonio Vieira’s famous sermon on the occasion of his returning from his mission in Brasil to Portugal. He says: ‘At the end I was left with the nostalgic feeling that I would never be able to read for the first time that supreme linguistic symphony.’ Of course, nothing can be read again ‘for the first time’. The first time is unique by definition. And that is sorrow. I’ll read again a thousand times Jesus’ words in the Last Super, I’ll meditate on them, will study them, will quote them, will speak about them, will learn them by heart…, but I’ll never be able to read them again for the first time. The virgin moment. The surprising initiative. The exclusive experience. The first innocence. The blessing of the first love. Such was my first reading of the gospels. It left its mark on me for ever. The love of Jesús as our life ideal was truly a blessed idea.

Isidro Esteve took part in the motorcycle Dakar competition in 2007 where he met with an accident and remained wheelchair bound for life. He tells here an African anecdote and the way he was later discharged from hospital.

I met Fatima in Zouérat. She was five year old, had black eyes, dark skin stained with tar, and curly hair. She came up to me barefoot, in a frayed dress, running in the dust. She was hoping for a gift from the stranger. She murmured in French, Cadeau, cadeau! (bakshis, a gift) asking for anything. I searched my pockets but all I found in them was desert sand. Fatima by my side and pulling now at my trousers kept asking for any help.

Suddenly, as an inspiration, I realised I had in my right side pocket one of those tiny plastic envelopes with sugar they give you in cafés. I took it out and gave it to her. She took it, laughed nervously and went running to a house where a bed-sheet hung as a door. I felt at the same time happy and miserable. Happy as I had finally found something to give, and miserable as the gift was such a paltry thing.

I called after her but she did not turn back. I thought she must had felt offended at my giveaway. And she had full right to feel offended though I had never meant it. I walked on, and after about five minutes someone caught the leg of my trousers. I turned and I saw Fatima, together with her mother, her grandmother, two brothers and an aunty. They all had come to me to thank me.

On May 30 I was operated upon for the first time after my accident, and on April 11th I was placed on the electric stimulator. I had to stay in hospital following a strict diet, daily checks, and all other cares till August 16th. But I couldn’t bear it any longer. I told the nurses about it and they told me to see the head doctor for spine trouble. I explained to her: “I just have the feeling I cannot stick it out here any longer; I must go back home.” She answered with a smile: “Congratulations. You can go. What I was waiting for was for you to have such a sensation and tell me. The first step to overcome all that has happened to you is for you to realise that you can do it and you want to do it. To feel sure on your own that it is not strictly necessary for you to remain any longer in the hospital.” I reported back: “I’m leaving.” – “When, tomorrow? After a week? When?” – “Now. Just now.” An hour later I was out with my wife eating an ice-cream on my way home. I myself couldn’t believe it, but it was a fact.

That charming little girl is my daughter. She sometimes looks at me with a question in her eyes that never comes to her lips: “Why is it you cannot walk, daddy?” She gives me life.

(Isidre Esteve, La Suerte de mi Destino, Ediciones Now, Badalona 2008, p. 85, 99, 109)