Andrew Kwan is a pleasant, easy-going man who loves music, long walks, soaking in the pool and hanging out with people who visit him at home.  

“He gets very excited and noisy and very happy,” said his big sister, Esther Kwan, the Principal of ACS (Academy), Singapore’s fifth ASD-NC (Autism Spectrum Disorder-National Curriculum) Special Education school.  

He also loves junk food, favouring fries and potato chips.

“When he sees the McDonald’s sign, he knows it is McDonald’s.”

At 38, Andrew has never gone out by himself or bought a burger for himself. Nor has he been able to sing along to his favourite song. He is severely handicapped intellectually, having been diagnosed with septo-optic dysplasia and microcephaly. Simply put, he was born with a portion of his brain missing.

Andrew cannot speak. Instead, he communicates via noises and gestures.

Andrew loves going out for walks.

“When he is moaning a certain way, you know he is not comfortable, but you don’t know where. We have to infer based on trying the action again or doing something differently and seeing his response,” Esther told Salt&Light.

“When he hears music, he will start clapping. When he was young, we would play a CD a lot. He would get excited. Then we realised that he was excited in anticipation of the next song.

“When he wants to go out, he leads us to the door. My dad who is retired takes him on walks four times day.”

From the time he was born, the siblings – Esther and two sisters – have always been included in his care. 

Esther (left) with Andrew and her two sisters.

“I get asked a lot, ‘What would it be like if you didn’t have a brother with special needs?’ But we don’t know any different. This is normal to us. It just means that my brother has more needs.”

He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother

Andrew is the third of four children and the only son in the family. When he born, he had a cleft lip and a cleft palate.

Andrew as a baby.

“But there was nothing that was indicative that there was any neurological issue,” says Esther.

However, weeks after his birth, he started having seizures. After a battery of tests, doctors gave a diagnosis “that was so long none of us remember it”. What the family could understand was that Andrew only had part of his brain developed. The missing portion was what caused the seizures as well as some body features not to be properly formed.

Countless neurological tests and many procedures to correct the cleft lip and cleft palate followed. Andrew was “in and out of the hospital”. To this day, he requires regular check-ups to monitor his condition and he remains on medication to manage his seizures.

Baby Andrew and his mother.

“He is fully dependent. He requires care in everything in his daily functions: Eat, wash, diapers, walking to a certain degree.”

When he was younger, he used to walk on his own. Now that he is older, he prefers to have someone hold his hand when he moves about, said Esther.

“When he gets seizures, he just collapses. He loses control of his muscles. As he got older, he became more conscious that he could fall because of his seizures.

“He also doesn’t have much depth perception. He is tall so his centre of gravity is higher and he is less stable. That fear of falling won’t allow him to walk on his own,” she explained. 

Esther and Andrew when they were younger.

His cognitive ability appears to be lower than that of a toddler’s. So Andrew does not watch television. Instead he loves company.

“There’s just a lot of sitting next to him, holding his hand. I give him a high five and he knows to give me a high five back.

“He cannot express himself in a way we expect but he knows when I am feeling down and he will move a bit closer to me, or look at me to see my expression. He responds to me when I do things for him and embraces me. He likes to rub foreheads and he gives the best hugs.

Rubbing foreheads with someone is one way Andrew shows affection.

In the last 15 years or so as their parents age, Esther has also taken over the night-time care of Andrew. Brother and sister sleep side by side because “he needs some physical touch to know that someone is there”.

Lessons from Andrew

As he grew up, his family had to adapt to Andrew’s needs, as well as his many hospital visits and stays. Places they could go to as a family were determined by whether it was suitable for Andrew. Curfews were decided based on whether Andrew needed extra care.

Andrew as a child.

But Esther has never minded it much. In fact, she credits her parents who are Christians with ensuring that all three sisters never felt neglected even as they attended to Andrew.

Her parents were there at her choir concerts, at every game her sisters played in school and at every drama performance in which they were involved.

“Because of my brother, my family is a lot closer. Without him, we would have been off doing our own different things and not really been at home so often. In so many ways, he has helped us to grow as a family,” Esther told Salt&Light.

Having Andrew has also taught the family to celebrate the small things.

“My whole family are quite go-getters. We enjoy doing a lot of things, we’re always on the go and there are a lot of things we want to accomplish.

“But with my brother, it will never be the big things. He keeps us grounded. He has taught us to really appreciate the small things, to desire more of the things that do count.”

A recent Kwan family photo.

Some time ago, Andrew learnt how to turn on the tap to fill his cup so he could brush his teeth. The seemingly small thing was a big step for him and one Esther celebrates. He does not have a good grip, so when he reaches out for French fries and is able to feed himself, that is another thing Esther feels is worth applauding.

Caring for Andrew has also given Esther a glimpse of who God is.

“I was pondering about what abiding in Christ means, about that dependency. As human beings, we want to do things on our own. And we can. If I get sick, I can wake up and get myself a cup of water.

“But Andrew can’t. He can’t even indicate to me that he needs water. It has to dawn on me that he might need a drink.

“In a sense, it illustrates what it is like with us and God. Our Heavenly Father knows us so much more and He will provide for us perfectly in His time what we need even before we ask for it.

“Through my brother’s life, I start to see God’s Word illustrated. Because of him, I see a lot of God.”

Abundant grace in abject adversity  

Andrew has lived long past others with the same condition. But no one knows what his life expectancy might be. His care in the future is something the family has yet to sit down to discuss.

“I can’t imagine putting him in a home. If he is in a home, his quality of life would deteriorate a lot. My plan is to care for him as far as possible,” Esther shared.

As the only sister living in Singapore and being single, Andrew’s care will likely be Esther’s responsibility.

Young Esther with baby Andrew.

“Do I see my brother as a trial? I don’t deny that there are many parts of life that are difficult and challenging. But God’s abundant grace will shine forth in what we may see as trials.

“I sometimes dream of meeting him in heaven and asking him what he thinks, whether he thinks his life is a trial, not being able to verbalise his needs, waiting for people to give things to him.

“But he is very happy, very easy-going, very easy to please. With God in the picture, it is never hopeless.”

Not too long ago, Esther got to see God’s grace in a difficult time. Andew had been having trouble finding a comfortable position in which to sleep. At first, they thought he had suffered a dislocation somewhere. They took him to the hospital and he came home seemingly better only to have the discomfort resurface.

It was during a second visit that an X-ray was ordered to ascertain if indeed he had dislocated a bone that they discovered that Andrew had contracted tuberculosis. Esther believes it was God’s grace that they were able to have a proper diagnosis, which is usually very difficult because Andrew cannot articulate the source of his pain.

Andrew (front, in blue) has drawn the family closer together.

“We choose to see God’s purpose in his life. If we truly believe that everyone is fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14), and made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), then this must be how God sees him and I choose to see him the way God does,” she said to Salt&Light.

Esther appreciates the fact that not every sibling of someone with special needs is as sanguine as she. In 2021, she co-founded a support group for siblings of person with special needs. SibsUnite caters to siblings aged 18 and older.

“We don’t want parents to say, ‘You got to go and join.’ We want them to join because they want to.”

As for Esther, Andrew will always be a part of her life and she is glad for it.

“I don’t know life without my brother.”

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