I think of my hubby daily

By Amanda Yong

TEARS, fears and scars - both physical and emotional - that may never heal.

The anguish of a wife who has lost her husband. The heartbreak of a mother who saw her son die in front of her eyes.

And the longing of a child for a father whose death she is too young to understand. These were some of the subjects raised when Madam Huang Mei Zhe, a clerk, and her mother-in-law, Madam Ng Bee Hion, spoke openly for the first time in an emotional press conference last night.

As tears flowed, Madam Huang said: "I think about my husband every day. His words are always with me,and I feel his spirit by my side.

"He was the best husband ever. I will bring up our children well so that that woman (Wu YunYun) will not get any satisfaction." It washer loving relationship with her husband that sparked off envy in Wu, Madam Huang said.

"She was jealous. Jealous that my husband treated me very well and doted on me, jealous that I had a happy family," she said.

Madam Huang's husband, Mr Tan Lead Sane, was an affectionate man who would hug her before he left for work and when he got home, she said.

But Wu and her husband,Mr Tan Lead Shake, were a more conservative couple,and did not display such affection openly.

"She was also envious that I could drive, that my husband's career was doing better than her husband's, that my husband was frequently travelling overseas for work while her husband wasn't," she claimed.

But, unlike her, Wu did not try to do anything to improve her own lot, she claimed. "She came to Singapore expecting to be a tai tai, expecting to be served, expecting to live off her husband, thinking that money would fall from trees," she claimed.

Madam Huang and Madam Ng rubbished Wu's claims that they did not get along with Wu and that Madam Ng favoured Madam Huang over Wu.

"Our relations were very good. It's not true that my mother-in-law ill-treated her," Madam Huang said.

To Wu's allegations that they scolded and beat her children, Madam Huang said: "Her children were very playful and naughty."

Both women think that Wu's sentence of 16 years is far too light.

Madam Huang's scars from the attack, on the front of her neck, running down her chest, are still visible. The incident caused her voice to change, and she has difficulties sleeping at night because she is still traumatised. "I get scared even when I hear footsteps behind me," she said.

Looking at her 3-year-old daughter, she said: "My children ask for their father every day. When they see other children with their fathers, they ask, 'Where's my father?'"

She also has another daughter, aged 1.

As for Wu's children, Madam Ng said that Mr Tan Lead Shake, who has lost his job, is taking care of them. He called to ask her about the sentence, Madam Ng said. "I told him it was16 years and he said, 'Good'."

ayong@sph.com.sg

This article was first published in The New Paper.