This is a story of a man whose maid died unexpectedly and only then realized she was keeping a secret.
As a Malaysian, Khoo, 65 and his family had employed a domestic helper for the past 30 years, since his first child was born in 1995. Back then, he recalls getting a maid was not only easier, but also cheaper.
Ida, 55 had been with Khoo and his family for the past 20 years, since his second child was born. Since then, he and his wife had gone on to have 3 more children, all of which were raised with the help of Ida. According to Khoo, he has always diligently raised her salary accordingly and got her return tickets every year for Raya to go home and visit her family as she had a husband and daughter.
All of a sudden, earlier this year, she started complaining of headaches and stomach aches, abdomen pains and body aches. When it didn’t go away after a couple of days, they rushed her to the GP at a private clinic who diagnosed her with failing kidneys and that she needed to be admitted immediately.
As Khoo and his family couldn’t afford to send her to a private hospital, they took her to a public hospital and waited with her. Her condition deteriorated rapidly over the next couple of days, as the doctors said that both her kidneys had failed beyond the point of dialysis and that she needed a transplant.
As she was a foreigner, the odds of receiving a transplant was a lot lower and could take a lot of time, if ever, warned the doctors. Khoo and his family contacted the immediate family of Ida, the helper and told them to come visit. By the time they had arrived 3 days later, Ida was already in a coma and on life support.
The Mystery continues…
What shocked Khoo and his family, was that when the helper’s family came and saw Ida, they started accusing Khoo of kidnapping her. The daughter, who was now in her late 20s came with her husband and they said they had been searching for their mother for the past 15 years, when they had lost contact with Ida. Shocked, Khoo and his family were speechless as they had been sending her home every year.
The family also accused Khoo and his family of not paying her as they had not received financial support from Ida in 15 years. This puzzled Khoo and his family as they remember her saying she needs to send money back home multiple times.
Ida passed away before she had any chance of recovery, just 5 days after being admitted. Khoo and his family, still puzzled, tried to investigate why she would lie about going home and seeing her family as well as what happened to all the money she had earned over 15 years as it was not with the family.
Upon investigating her phone and her personal belongings, they still could not figure out where the money was as she would always send it via Western Union to a contact in Indonesia.
However, they did find a few printed photographs of her, with a man and baby in Indonesia. The puzzling thing is that when Ida’s daughter saw these pics, she said that it wasn’t her, her father or anyone she recognized.
The Mystery remains unsolved, although they did find a doctor’s note from a hospital in Indonesia, so they suspected that she knew she was sick, but was afraid she would lose her job and be sent home to Indonesia, if she came clean with her sickness.
Since this incident, Khoo reflects that he and his family should have taken more care of Ida, sending her for medical check-ups yearly as the employer. He regrets not looking into her health and said her sudden loss has affected his family.
Have a story to tell?
Share your story on our Facebook page and you may be featured on In Real Life Malaysia.
I Made Sure My Ex-husband Lost Everything After He Cheated On Me With A 21 Year Old Influencer
