AS A 17-year-old schoolgirl growing up in Sanur, Bali, Siti Fatimah loved teasing the Singaporean man who patronised her mum's satay stall daily.

'Get married quick and hire me to look after your children,' she would tell Mr Chong Tee Chye, who was working for an ornamental fish supplier on the Indonesian island.

But love works in mysterious ways. A year later, Mr Chong did get married. His bride was Siti. Today, his three children are hers too.

But sadly, misfortune has a role in this love story as well.

'Now, I've got to look after this big baby, too,' says Madam Siti, 34, wiping the face of her once strapping husband rendered paralysed and unable to speak after suffering a brain haemorrhage two years ago.

Besides bathing and dressing 51-year- old Mr Chong every day, she ensures he gets his meals every three hours - via a feeding tube.

Some nights, she tosses and turns worrying over finances and her children's future, wondering what could have been.

She never had those worries when her husband was well.

Mr Chong, who adopted the name Muhd Jimmy Ramadhan after he converted to Islam to marry her 16 years ago, doted on her and took care of everything. He bought the groceries, took the children to school, paid the bills and ferried her everywhere.

She remembers their courtship well.

'My mother used to wonder why he came to the stall every day. He later told me he just wanted to see me,' recalls Madam Siti, the eldest of four children.

'He said it was cinta pandang pertama,' she says bashfully, using the Indonesian phrase for love at first sight.

Mr Chong, the fifth of seven children of a general worker and a housewife, won her heart by being nice to her parents and siblings, especially her youngest brother.

They married in 1993 after she finished the Indonesian equivalent of the Alevels. He was 35, she 18.

The couple made Singapore their home just before the arrival of their first child, daughter Farah Rasita, now 14. They went on to have two sons Muhd Rifqi, 10, and Muhd Raihan, six.

Mr Chong found a job as a lorry driver and after several years in rented quarters, the family moved into their own spanking new four-room flat in Sengkang in 2000.

Life seemed complete but on Aug 28, 2007, tragedy struck.

He did not return home as he always did by 5pm. Madam Siti knew something was badly wrong when her husband's employer rang several times asking where he was.

She tried contacting him but got nowhere. 'He was very responsible. It just was not like him not to answer his mobile phone,' she says.

When he had not appeared by midnight, her neighbour Rukmina Debi took her to the police station to file a report.

Soon after, his boss rang to say Mr Chong had been found, slumped against his seat in his lorry, which was parked by the side of a road near his office. The engine was running, the air-conditioner was switched on but he was unconscious. A blood vessel had burst in his brain.

The next few months flew by in a daze for the housewife. Her husband was in a coma for more than a month.

Doctors told her to expect the worst. Even if he were to wake up, they said, he would be severely incapacitated.

'But she scolded them and told them no matter what, she would always be by his side,' says Madam Rukmina, 47, who helped to prop her neighbour up in her darkest hour.

Mr Chong opened his eyes, the day before Hari Raya Aidilfitri.

He went home two months later, unable to speak and paralysed on his right side. Although he can now lift his left hand, he can barely control it.

Yet he is lucid and fully aware of his surroundings. He listens intently throughout this interview, grunting and nodding his head vigorously in agreement.

He 'speaks' by pointing to letters of the alphabet on a folded poster Madam Siti always keeps by his side.

The last two years have been a baptism of fire for the shy housewife who speaks little English.

Where once she just needed to cook, mind the children and keep the house tidy, she now has four people depending on her for various needs.

'Luckily, I have neighbours like Rukmina, and my husband's family to help me and keep me sane,' says Madam Siti, whose mother has come over from Indonesia to lend a hand.

The children get free textbooks, uniforms and food coupons at school but she often worries how they will cope. 'I want to work but how can I when he needs to be fed every three hours,' she says.

Mr Chong's special dietary needs, medical bills and massage sessions are fast depleting their Central Provident Fund insurance pay-out. Fortunately, she does not have to fret about a roof over their head; the flat has been paid up under a home protection insurance scheme.

That the family is close is obvious. When the youngest boy comes home from school, the first thing he does is to kiss his father's feet and bury his head affectionately in his neck.

'I consult him on issues concerning the children. When they want something, I tell them to ask him. He is still their father,' Madam Siti says.

Mr Chong knows he has a great wife. He salutes her by painstakingly raising his left hand to give her a thumbs up.

Asked if he worries for her and their children, he lets out a piteously guttural cry. A trickle of tears seeps from the corners of his eyes.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.