Ms Tara Dhar Hasnain (left) with her helper of four years, Ms Gelerina Hernandez.PHOTO: COURTESY OF MS TARA DHAR HASNAIN /Samuel Devaraj
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SINGAPORE – As her maid watched her husband’s life slowly slip away, Ms Tara Dhar Hasnain sat by her side, trying her best to comfort her.
Ms Tara, 71, sat with Ms Gelerina Hernandez, 49, in her Ulu Pandan condominium for about fours hours on that fateful afternoon on Oct 6 last year, looking on via Messenger video call as the younger woman’s 53-year-old husband lay dying on his hospital bed in San Fernando, Philippines, stricken with throat cancer and unable to speak.
Knowing the end was near, Ms Hernandez, who could not be at his bedside due to travel difficulties because of the Covid-19 pandemic, told her husband not to worry about their three children and that she would take care of them.
Ms Tara told The Straits Times: “We saw him take his last breath and then his eyes closed. It was very, very hard to watch.”
Ms Hernandez’s husband died a day before his 54th birthday and she has yet to return home since the death.
“It was very difficult for me to accept that he was gone, but it was harder to deal with it while being far from my family, my children,” said the Filipina, who last returned home in November 2019 for about four weeks to take care of him.
