NEWS
Money won't bring my sister back
Mr Chan Chee Kow (in blue) comforting his niece (in white) after they identified Madam Chan Ah Ying's body at the mortuary on 4 April 2012.
SINGAPORE - She came to Singapore for the sake of her younger daughter and yesterday the daughter had the heartbreaking task of taking her body back to Malaysia.
Madam Chan Ah Ying, 66, made the difficult decision to leave her husband and their Seremban home a few years ago to come here to help take care of her two grandchildren.
On Tuesday morning, she died after being run over by an SBS Transit bus service 159 while crossing a traffic light junction of Sengkang East Way and Compassvale Road.
The Singapore permanent resident had been helping her younger daughter by caring for her two sons, aged four and five years old.
And she had met with the fatal accident on her way home after dropping the boys in school.
"If she hadn't come, her daughter would have problems finding someone to take care of her children when she went to work," said Madam Chan's younger brother, Mr Chan Chee Kow.
Although the accident had happened around 11.20am, the 64-year-old retiree, a Singaporean who lives in Yew Tee, said he got the grim news only at 2pm when his brother called him from Seremban, Negeri Sembilan.
"Police initially found her daughter's particulars on my sister," he told The New Paper in Mandarin yesterday.
This had led to some confusion and some early media reports said Madam Chan was 33, which is her daughter's age.
Mr Chan said the police then contacted his niece, Madam Liu Hui Qing.
Grief-stricken and in shock, she called her twin brothers in Seremban. The twins told their uncle, Mr Chan's brother, who owns a business in Seremban, about the tragedy.
He immediately called Mr Chan in Singapore to ask him about the news. But Mr Chan was shocked as he had no clue about the accident.
"It was then that I called my niece and found out what had happened," he said.
"It's sad because just last week, she had come over to my place to visit me."
He fondly remembers his sister as someone who cared greatly for her family.
"She left everything behind and came over her just for her daughter. I guess that speaks enough about her," he said.
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