He flew 1,500 miles to find maid who raised him. When she brought out his favorite 'smelly pillow,' he wept

When Johnathan Chua was a child in Singapore, his parents often traveled for work, and for much of his early childhood, the person who cared for him day to day was a domestic worker from the Philippines named Auntie Zen. She fed him, brought him to the playground, played with him, and, as he would learn years later, even bought him snacks using her own money. He hadn’t seen her since he was seven years old. Now, 26 years later, he and his sister Nikki Chua traveled to Daraga, Philippines, to find her — a reunion captured in a video shared by CNA Insider.

The search began when Johnathan's family recalled Auntie Zen's full name during a dinner conversation — something he had seen in the letters she used to write home. With no luck on social media, he began messaging people who shared her last name. One of those messages reached her cousin, and then her daughter replied. "She said, 'I know that you are the one my mom took care of in Singapore because she used to tell stories about you and Nikki all the time,'" Johnathan shared. To keep it a surprise, Zen was told she was taking part in an interview about her time working in Singapore. During the interview, she saw Jonathan appear out of nowhere and broke down.

"I was so scared you might have forgotten me," Jonathan said. "I never forget you, because of your nose, your eyes," she replied. She added, "I also remember you because of this one," reaching into her bag and pulling out a "smelly pillow" he used to carry as a child. "You always smelled this," she said. As soon as Jonathan saw it, he broke down into tears, explaining that the pillow was given to him by his maternal grandmother. "I couldn't sleep without this one. According to [Auntie Zen], I put it in her bag," he said. Zen spent five years with the family in the 1990s, caring for three children while sending money home to support her own. She returned to the Philippines after her father died, and didn’t come back.

Since then, she has worked by cooking, doing laundry, raising animals, and selling food locally. Her home, damaged twice by typhoons, was rebuilt with what little she had left. When Johnathan arrived, he saw how much she had managed on her own. They spent the next few days walking her market route, cooking with her, and meeting her neighbors. She showed them how she treats her leg with herbs from her garden. "It worries me, because when her leg hurts, she doesn't say anything. She just keeps going," Johnathan said. He also said the reunion helped him understand why she didn’t return. "It gave me a little bit of closure to know that it's not that we weren't important to her. Her family just needed her more than we did." In an update, Jonathan shared that Auntie Zen was now "financially cared for," and thanked everyone for the donations.

Many who watched the video said they were moved by the reunion and the years of care that came before it. @JG-li4go wrote, "I shed tears on the 'smelly pillow' part. And she KEPT IT FOR 26 LONG YEARS." @thinkpadx60 said, "Hope her medical issue is not serious. I hope the team helped to take her to a doctor and get treatment." @mgfd932 remarked, "When you plant love, you will also harvest love. These are very nice to see."