“I do..” said a happy Winnie as she recite the marriage vow in the presence of Justice of peace, relatives and friend. How times flies and this constant reminder of my age as I continue to mature daily. I am her part-time photographer for this holy matrimony..
The pen is mightier than a sword, or so to speak. Words are a translation of what pen wants to say. Its mightier. I truly understand the essence of this as the relationship between myself and my parents continue to strain toward the wrong side of the house.
I must have hurt them much. The usual patient Dad of mine shock me thoroughly by ignoring my calls, mum continuing her ever unassuming moods. This time I have hurt them much. Carelessness or tactless words I may argue, looking at hindsight, I had indeed hurt them with the sword. Perhaps had pierced their hearts deep and hard.
I start to recount days I had taken for granted after slowly stitching the wound, I was not sensitive. I realised that I am a poor manager of feelings. The perhaps over consciousness over the well-being of my wife and thus losing the sensitivity I ought to pay attention to on my parents.
I had visited them far and few at their place. I have not pay much attention to their well-being, I have not pay attention to their needs and emotional support. I have not being sensitive to their ever eagerness to care and love my children. I have not, I have not. As my eyelids “jump” over the last few days, the Chinese saying goes, a disaster is approaching and yet I have not pay attention much to the words I had used, I did not.
I have to be patient, I have to be sensitive, I have to gain back the trust and support though this time, I felt worse.
After work, we went to CNai Hong Kong Restaurant at East Coast Park. I love their curry noodle and their Pomelo Mango Ice Blended.
Tactfulness was the word of the day. Kinship seems to slowly corrode away as I sense the distance between me and my parents, Mum specifically. A casual word used torn rekindle the pain I had experience 3 years back. What dramatically shock me is the fixed perception and how everything can be linked to my present family. With absolutely no ill intention, I now have to find the balance (or antidote) to revive the relationship I had painstakingly stitched back over the years. Will anyone really understand me? Mum and Dear?
2 October 2010, Mdm Kwa had passed on after suffering her most damaging stroke in Jul 2008. Passing of any family member is always difficult. While MM Lee spoke at length about adjustment to life after her passing, the media coverage on the supposed private funeral perhaps is more difficult. The restricted space for them, the family, to openly expressing their grief and their loss. While I only managed to glimpse Mdm Kwa from books, Lee Kuan Yew’s memoirs and more, she has definitely made a difference not only in MM Lee Kuan Yew’s life, but also to the growth of modern Singapore in her behind the scene support of her husband.
Extracs below are the eulogies from her husband, MM Lee Kuan Yew, her eldest son, Mr Lee Hsien Loong and youngest son, Mr Lee Hsien Yang.
Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew's eulogy for Mrs Lee
The last farewell to my wife
Ancient peoples developed and ritualised mourning practices to express the shared grief of family and friends, and together show not fear or distaste for death, but respect for the dead one; and to give comfort to the living who will miss the deceased.
I recall the ritual mourning when my maternal grandmother died some 75 years ago.
For five nights the family would gather to sing her praises and wail and mourn at her departure, led by a practised professional mourner.
Such rituals are no longer observed. My family's sorrow is to be expressed in personal tributes to the matriarch of our family.
In October 2003 when she had her first stroke, we had a strong intimation of our mortality.
My wife and I have been together since 1947 for more than three quarters of our lives. My grief at her passing cannot be expressed in words. But today, when recounting our lives together, I would like to celebrate her life.
In our quiet moments, we would revisit our lives and times together. We had been most fortunate. At critical turning points in our lives, fortune favoured us.
As a young man with an interrupted education at Raffles College, and no steady job or profession, her parents did not look upon me as a desirable son-in-law.
But she had faith in me. We had committed ourselves to each other. I decided to leave for England in September 1946 to read law, leaving her to return to Raffles College to try to win one of the two Queen's Scholarships awarded yearly.
We knew that only one Singaporean would be awarded. I had the resources, and sailed for England, and hoped that she would join me after winning the Queen's Scholarship. If she did not win it, she would have to wait for me for three years.
In June the next year, 1947, she did win it. But the British colonial office could not get her a place in Cambridge.
Through Chief Clerk of Fitzwilliam, I discovered that my Censor at Fitzwilliam, W S Thatcher, was a good friend of the Mistress of Girton, Miss Butler.
He gave me a letter of introduction to the Mistress. She received me and I assured her that Choo would most likely take a "First", because she was the better student when we both were at Raffles College.
I had come up late by one term to Cambridge, yet passed my first year qualifying examination with a class 1. She studied Choo's academic record and decided to admit her in October that same year, 1947.
We have kept each other company ever since. We married privately in December 1947 at Stratford-upon-Avon. At Cambridge, we both put in our best efforts.
She took a first in two years in Law Tripos II. I took a double first, and a starred first for the finals, but in three years. We did not disappoint our tutors.
Our Cambridge Firsts gave us a good start in life. Returning to Singapore, we both were taken on as legal assistants in Laycock & Ong, a thriving law firm in Malacca Street.
Then we married officially a second time that September 1950 to please our parents and friends. She practised conveyancing and draftsmanship, I did litigation.
In February 1952, our first son Hsien Loong was born. She took maternity leave for a year.
That February, I was asked by John Laycock, the Senior Partner, to take up the case of the Postal and Telecommunications Uniformed Staff Union, the postmen's union.
They were negotiating with the government for better terms and conditions of service. Negotiations were deadlocked and they decided to go on strike.
It was a battle for public support. I was able to put across the reasonableness of their case through the press and radio. After a fortnight, they won concessions from the government.
Choo, who was at home on maternity leave, pencilled through my draft statements, making them simple and clear.
Over the years, she influenced my writing style. Now I write in short sentences, in the active voice. We gradually influenced each other's ways and habits as we adjusted and accommodated each other.
We knew that we could not stay starry-eyed lovers all our lives; that life was an on-going challenge with new problems to resolve and manage.
We had two more children, Wei Ling in 1955 and Hsien Yang in 1957. She brought them up to be well-behaved, polite, considerate and never to throw their weight as the prime minister's children.
As a lawyer, she earned enough, to free me from worries about the future of our children.
She saw the price I paid for not having mastered Mandarin when I was young. We decided to send all three children to Chinese kindergarten and schools.
She made sure they learned English and Malay well at home. Her nurturing has equipped them for life in a multi-lingual region.
We never argued over the upbringing of our children, nor over financial matters. Our earnings and assets were jointly held. We were each other's confidant. She had simple pleasures. We would walk around the Istana gardens in the evening, and I hit golf balls to relax.
Later, when we had grandchildren, she would take them to feed the fish and the swans in the Istana ponds.
Then we would swim. She was interested in her surroundings, for instance, that many bird varieties were pushed out by mynahs and crows eating up the insects and vegetation.
She discovered the curator of the gardens had cleared wild grasses and swing fogged for mosquitoes, killing off insects they fed on.
She stopped this and the bird varieties returned. She surrounded the swimming pool with free flowering scented flowers and derived great pleasure smelling them as she swam.
She knew each flower by its popular and botanical names. She had an enormous capacity for words.
She had majored in English literature at Raffles College and was a voracious reader, from Jane Austen to JRR Tolkien, from Thucydides' "The Peloponnesian Wars" to Virgil's "Aeneid", to "The Oxford Companion to Food, and Seafood of Southeast Asia", to "Roadside Trees of Malaya", and Birds of Singapore".
She helped me draft the Constitution of the PAP. For the inaugural meeting at Victoria Memorial Hall on 4 November 1954, she gathered the wives of the founder members to sew rosettes for those who were going on stage.
In my first election for Tanjong Pagar, our home in Oxley Road, became the HQ to assign cars provided by my supporters to ferry voters to the polling booth.
She warned me that I could not trust my new found associates, the left-wing trade unionists led by Lim Chin Siong.
She was furious that he never sent their high school student helpers to canvass for me in Tanjong Pagar, yet demanded the use of cars provided by my supporters to ferry my Tanjong Pagar voters.
She had an uncanny ability to read the character of a person. She would sometimes warn me to be careful of certain persons; often, she turned out to be right.
When we were about to join Malaysia, she told me that we would not succeed because the UMNO Malay leaders had such different lifestyles and because their politics were communally-based, on race and religion.
I replied that we had to make it work as there was no better choice. But she was right. We were asked to leave Malaysia before two years.
When separation was imminent, Eddie Barker, as Law Minister, drew up the draft legislation for the separation.
But he did not include an undertaking by the Federation Government to guarantee the observance of the two water agreements between the PUB and the Johor state government.
I asked Choo to include this. She drafted the undertaking as part of the constitutional amendment of the Federation of Malaysia Constitution itself. She was precise and meticulous in her choice of words.
The amendment statute was annexed to the Separation Agreement, which we then registered with the United Nations.
The then Commonwealth Secretary Arthur Bottomley said that if other federations were to separate, he hoped they would do it as professionally as Singapore and Malaysia.
It was a compliment to Eddie's and Choo's professional skills. Each time Malaysian Malay leaders threatened to cut off our water supply, I was reassured that this clear and solemn international undertaking by the Malaysian government in its Constitution will get us a ruling by the UNSC (United Nations Security Council).
After her first stroke, she lost her left field of vision. This slowed down her reading. She learned to cope, reading with the help of a ruler. She swam every evening and kept fit. She continued to travel with me, and stayed active despite the stroke.
She stayed in touch with her family and old friends. She listened to her collection of CDs, mostly classical, plus some golden oldies. She jocularly divided her life into "before stroke" and "after stroke", like BC and AD.
She was friendly and considerate to all associated with her. She would banter with her WSOs (woman security officers) and correct their English grammar and pronunciation in a friendly and cheerful way.
Her former WSOs visited her when she was at NNI. I thank them all.
Her second stroke on 12 May 2008 was more disabling. I encouraged and cheered her on, helped by a magnificent team of doctors, surgeons, therapists and nurses.
Her nurses, WSOs and maids all grew fond of her because she was warm and considerate. When she coughed, she would take her small pillow to cover her mouth because she worried for them and did not want to infect them.
Her mind remained clear but her voice became weaker. When I kissed her on her cheek, she told me not to come too close to her in case I caught her pneumonia.
I assured her that the doctors did not think that was likely because I was active. When given some peaches in hospital, she asked the maid to take one home for my lunch. I was at the centre of her life.
On June 24, 2008, a CT scan revealed another bleed again on the right side of her brain. There was not much more that medicine or surgery could do except to keep her comfortable.
I brought her home on July 3, 2008. The doctors expected her to last a few weeks. She lived till October 2, 2 years and 3 months.
She remained lucid. They gave time for me and my children to come to terms with the inevitable.
In the final few months, her faculties declined. She could not speak but her cognition remained. She looked forward to have me talk to her every evening.
Her last wish she shared with me was to enjoin our children to have our ashes placed together, as we were in life.
The last two years of her life were the most difficult. She was bed-ridden after small successive strokes; she could not speak but she was still cognisant.
Every night she would wait for me to sit by her to tell her of my day's activities and to read her favourite poems.
Then she would sleep.
I have precious memories of our 63 years together. Without her, I would be a different man, with a different life. She devoted herself to me and our children. She was always there when I needed her. She has lived a life full of warmth and meaning.
I should find solace at her 89 years of her life well lived. But at this moment of the final parting, my heart is heavy with sadness.
PM Lee Hsien Loong's eulogy for Mrs Lee Kuan Yew
Eulogy for Mama
Mama has always been part of our lives. Papa was busy with political work, so she did most of the bringing up of the children - me, Ling and Yang.
She nurtured us, taught us, disciplined us, took care of us, and fussed over us. She would be home for lunch every day when we came home from school, spending some time with us before going back to work in the afternoon.
Loving but strict, she enforced clear rules, encouraged us to do well, and took pride in our successes.
She kept the first school prize that I ever won, for doing well in kindergarten - a pencil sharpener in the shape of tiny trophy, in the display cabinet at home. It is still there today.
Mama did not believe in spoiling her children. When we were small, she would walk with us down Oxley Road to a little stationery and book shop along Orchard Road, now long gone.
I think it was called Naina Mohamad and Sons. I was interested in trains, and remember in particular one book all about trains displayed in the shop.
It was a hardcover book, old and slightly shop-worn, really meant for adults rather than children. I found the book fascinating, but I was not to get it easily.
Each time we visited the shop, I would look at it and reluctantly put it back. Only after many visits did she finally agree to buy the book, which I kept and treasured for years.
Not surprisingly, Mama did not shower us with expensive toys, and rather disapproved when the grandparents sometimes did.
But she would visit the textile shops that used to be in High Street, and bring us home the long cardboard tubes which were at the centre of the rolls of fabric, and had been discarded after all the fabric had been sold. They cost nothing, but were great fun used as telescopes, for sword fights, and endless children's games.
When I had my own children, my wife and I did the same.
When we were a little older, Mama got us to join the National Library, the old building at Stamford Road. Every fortnight she would take the three of us to the children's section of the library, to borrow another armful of books each, until we were old enough to go on our own.
Sometimes when we found the books had been defaced, she would try to erase the graffiti, or if she could not would make a point of reporting it to the librarian when we returned the books.
By the time we graduated to the adults' section, we must have read hundreds of books, and had picked up a lifelong love for books and reading.
We would visit our maternal grandparents at Pasir Panjang regularly. Their house was on the seafront, and at high tide the water would come right in to the seawall.
We would swim in the sea, and Mama would sit on the steps watching over us.
Once when I had almost learnt to swim but not quite, I got into difficulty using goggles and a snorkel, and nearly drowned. Mama had to plunge in fully dressed to rescue me. She was not amused.
When the boys went away to university, she fussed over us at long distance. She was a skilful knitter, and knitted us sweaters to stay warm, one after another.
I still have one of them, a favourite rust-coloured one, patched many times at the elbows but still warm.
We stayed in close touch during my years abroad. Once a week I would sit down to write a long letter home, and Mama and Papa would each write me a long letter too.
In those days, Cambridge was very far away from home. Email and Skype did not yet exist. International phone calls were expensive and hard to make.
The weekly letter was eagerly awaited for news of home, and for news of the son fending for himself in a foreign land. I would read and reread the letters from home, then file them away carefully.
Nowadays the casual convenience of instant, free internet access has made letter writing an endangered art, but I am not sure if it has improved the quality of human communication.
When Hsien Yang and I got married, she embraced her daughters-in-law as her own children. When grandchildren arrived, she helped to look after them, especially my two elder children - Xiuqi and Yipeng - after their mother Ming Yang died.
She and the Popo supervised the maids, took the very little ones for walks every evening, and more than made up for what I could not do as a single father.
The years passed. Even in old age, Mama kept a motherly eye on her children. She would follow my public appearances on TV and in the press, and comment on my dress or demeanour.
After one particularly long evening function which both my parents and I attended, she reproached me: "You were bored stiff, and looked it".
When I fell ill with lymphoma, she worried about my children again, and also about me, fretting over whether I was eating enough nutritious food to stay strong and fight the cancer.
On Sundays the family would gather for lunch at Oxley Road. For a time it was with all the grandchildren, who would make a fine hullabaloo.
But as the kids grew up and went off to national service, or went away to study, often it would be back to just Papa, Mama and the three children and our wives, plus Shaowu, the youngest grandchild.
One Sunday in May two years ago, we had the usual family lunch. I had spent the morning on a constituency visit to Tampines, and told her they were debating whether to allow bicycles on pedestrian footpaths.
She reminded me that when I was in Cambridge and was mostly a pedestrian, I had written home to complain about the bicycles being a menace, because they crept up quietly on one from behind, giving no warning except for sinister whirring noises. I had completely forgotten, but she was right.
She said: "The older I get, the longer ago the things I remember".
But she tracked current events too, and knew what the hot topics of the day were.
The next day I was in my office when my security officer told me that Mama had fallen down at home, and Wei Ling was rushing her to NNI.
She had had her second stroke. The last two and a half years have been difficult on her and on the family. Now she is at peace.
Over these last few days, I and my family have been deeply touched by the outpouring of condolences and fond recollections from people of all walks of life.
She touched the lives of all those who met her, and many more who knew of her only through television images, media reports, or word of mouth. They sensed what a special person she was, and how much she had quietly contributed to Singapore.
Thousands turned up at Sri Temasek to pay their respects. Some bowed or stood in silent prayer, while others crossed themselves or did a namaste.
Still others fingered rosaries, and one lady spun a prayer wheel. Many were visibly moved.
Mama's children and our spouses stood beside her to acknowledge and thank them all, just as Mama had stood beside us so many times before.
All of our lives, Mama has been there for us. We have rejoiced together, grieved together, and shared critical moments together.
Now we will all have to learn to live without her. But she lives on in her children and grandchildren, in our cherished memories of her, and in the persons she has nurtured us into.
Lee Hsien Yang's eulogy for Mrs Lee Kuan Yew
One of the earliest photos of my happy childhood shows me at Frasers Hill, a chubby cheerful toddler taking my first tentative steps. Mama is hovering in the background, ready to catch me if needed, and yet allowing me to find my own feet. She played this role in raising Loong, Ling and me: always there for us if needed but helping us become strong independent individuals.
I also have wonderful memories of the many idyllic family holidays at Cameron Highlands when we would stay at Cluny Lodge, a guest house perched on a scenic knoll. I remember the brisk invigorating air, long walks on the golf course, playing in the mountain streams. In the evenings we would toast marshmallows and listen to stories around the fireplace.
In August 1965, when I was not yet 8, our family holiday at Cameron Highlands was suddenly cut short. A crisis I did not then comprehend was unfolding and Mama swiftly bundled us down the hill to Kuala Lumpur and then to Singapore. It was only much later that I came to understand the historic significance of that abrupt interruption. I have not returned to Cameron Highlands since, wishing to preserve untouched my happy memories.
Although Mama encouraged all her three children to strive for academic excellence, I never felt pressured. Perhaps, it is because I was the youngest child. In fact Mama would sometimes tease me as having the "youngest child syndrome".
Mama supported my numerous extra curricular interests, including swimming, canoeing, the military band, the Singapore Youth Orchestra. Mama often said she is a worrier by nature. Luckily her worries about these interfering with my academic achievement were completely unfounded.
Mama loved music. She encouraged Loong and me to play the recorder when we were little, moving up to the clarinet in secondary school. We shared a love of classical music. Her favorite was Bach; she also enjoyed Mozart, Hadyn, Vivaldi. She continued to enjoy music into old age. In hospital after her stroke, she asked for her MP3 player. We would like to think the music was a comfort to her.
She also enjoyed popular singers of her time: Doris Day, in particular Que Sera Sera, Vera Lynn, Bing Crosby, The Black and White Minstrels and Danny Kaye. I remember Danny Kaye's charming song about Tubby the Tuba entitled "Be Yourself". Tubby dreamed of being a different musical instrument but concluded it was best to be himself. In many ways, this represented Mama, in modern IT jargon, WYSIWYG - what you see is what you get. Her genuineness and sincerity left a deep impression.
When I went away to University, Mama and I would correspond regularly. She was good at reading between the lines, and before long noticed the frequency Fern was being mentioned in my letters. They arranged to meet for tea on the lawn in front of Sri Temasek; I am sure there was mutual trepidation. Thankfully Mama and Fern hit it off very well, and, although Fern was competitive enough to learn to knit so that I would not only wear my mother's hand knitted jumpers, they had a warm relationship with many common interests besides knitting.
Soon after we married in 1981, Fern and I started receiving hints that grandchildren were due. These messages began quite subtly, but by 1984, when I was attending Staff College in Camberley and Fern was working as a young lawyer in the City of London, Mama wrote to say " I can understand your wanting a year or even two to run in your marriage, but it really is about time you got on with starting a family!"
Mama was thrilled when she first heard news of Fern's pregnancy and proceeded to knit numerous baby booties in anticipation. Mama knitted baby blue, white, lemon and peppermint green booties only, but no pink. She must have been prescient. Our firstborn, Shengwu, was a boy! We still have those booties today.
The following year, in 1986, Fern delivered our second baby, yet another boy, Huanwu. Mama rushed to the hospital obviously thrilled and delighted, declaring "Thank goodness it's a boy. If the baby had been a tiger girl, just think what difficulty we would have had marrying a tiger girl off!".
Our third son was born a decade after the first two, and is much younger than all Mama's other grandchildren. When Shaowu arrived in 1995, Mama was already 74 and had given up hope of any more grandchildren. In corporate parlance, Shaowu was an unexpected bonus issue. Shaowu was greeted with great delight and she pronounced that she now had one granddaughter and six grandsons; that there was a Chinese saying about a moon and seven stars, so all we needed to do was to produce another grandson to complete her family! Sadly, neither Fern nor Ho Ching obliged.
Shaowu has the privilege of being both the youngest son, and the youngest grandson. Nai Nai (as he called his grandmother) was always pleased to see him and loved to be with him. She called him "Shao Shao", and the two got on remarkably well despite the 75 years age gap. She would invite him to outings to the zoo, the night safari, or just to play at the Istana grounds. They both enjoyed these times immensely.
Mama kept a collection of wooden tops, and would sometimes loan them to Shao. If he forgot to return them the next time he saw her, she would chide him. She did this to inculcate a sense of responsibility. Every year, Shaowu would attend the National Day Parade with her. His spirited participation gave her much pleasure.
Mama made sure the family got together regularly. In 1990, when I was still in the army, I decided to go parachuting. Neither Fern nor Mama thought much of this idea but I proceeded nonetheless. When we then did not show up for our regular Sunday family lunch, Fern received a call from Mama asking if the grandchildren were sick. Fern then explained that I had sprained my ankle parachuting. I soon received a call from Papa summoning me to SGH to have my injury fully investigated, only to discover Mama's intuition as usual was spot on and I had indeed broken my ankle.
In October 2003, soon after Papa's 80th birthday, sadly, Mama suffered her first stroke. This stroke left her much weaker and fragile. That she was less mobile and could not do many things for herself was a source of tremendous frustration for her. Although Papa had been accustomed to being looked after by his mother during his childhood and youth, and by Mama after they got married, they now reversed roles. From the outset, Papa helped, cajoled and encouraged her in her rehabilitation. He continued to care for her with an infinite amount of patience, love, kindness and good humour. He adjusted his routine to accommodate her changing circumstances and physical condition. His abiding love, devotion and care must have been a great comfort to her, and an inspiration to Fern and me on how marriage is a life long partnership, through good health and illness.
When we married in 1981, Papa wrote Fern and me a letter with advice on marriage. Of his relationship with Mama he said "... we have never allowed the other to feel abandoned and alone in any moment of crises. Quite the contrary, we have faced all major crisis in our lives together, sharing our fears and hopes, and our subsequent grief or exultation. These moments of crises have bonded us closer together. With the years, the number of special ties which we two share have increased. Some of them we share with the children." Papa has lived this love and commitment throughout these last difficult years.
Fern and I, our three sons, Shengwu, Huanwu and Shaowu miss Mama dearly. We will cherish her memory.
