Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
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Birthday Party for MM
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Funeral
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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
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MM Lee's eulogy to his wife
'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 in her 89 years of life well lived. But at this moment of the final parting, my heart is heavy with sorrow and grief.'
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'ssorrow is to be expressed in personal tributes to the matriarch of our family.
In October 2003, when she (Mrs Lee Kuan Yew) 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. Mygrief 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 the 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 Class1.
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.
'My heart is heavy with sorrow and grief'
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 ongoing 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 learnt 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 J.R.R. Tolkien, from Thucydides' History Of The Peloponnesian Wars to Virgil's Aeneid, to The Oxford Companion To Food, and Seafood Of South-east 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 Nov 4, 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 learnt 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 (National Neuroscience Institute). I thank them all. (See below)
Her second stroke on May 12, 2008 was more disabling. I encouraged and cheered her on, helped by a magnificent team of doctors, surgeons, therapists and nurses. (See below)
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 me 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 Oct 2, two years and three 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 bedridden 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 in her 89 years of life well lived. But at this moment of the final parting, my heart is heavy with sorrow and grief.
'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 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.'
'Her last wish she shared with me was to enjoin our children to have our ashes placed together, as we were in life.'
AFTER HER SECOND STROKE...
'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.'
In his eulogy, MM Lee thanked his wife's former woman security officers who visited her while she was ill, and paid tribute to her 'magnificent team' of doctors, surgeons, therapists and nurses.
MM'S PRIVATE OFFICE:
Principal private secretary
Chee Hong Tat
Press secretary
Yeong Yoon Ying
Personal assistants
Wong Lin Hoe, Koh Kiang Chay, Lilian Ho
Security officers and woman security officers
Alice Lim Siew Cheng, Alice Goh Siew Hiang, Catherine Tan Noi Keo, Goh Ai Hoon, Silver Ng Su Meng, Karen Ng Poh Ling, Mae Teo Siew Inn, Joey Leong Kai Mun, Joyce Chong Ai Lin, Jillian Phua, Teo Cheng Piau, Tan Yew Eng, Mervin Kwong Hoong Fai, Tong Ming Ming, Mok Suay Kheng and Angie Lee Ai Chern
DOCTORS:
National Neuroscience Institute
Lee Kim En (Neurology), Ivan Ng (Neurosurgery), Francis Hui (Neuroradiology)
Tan Tock Seng Hospital
Suresh Sahadevan (General Medicine), Chin Jing Jih (Geriatric Medicine), Karen Chua (Rehabilitation Medicine), Kwek Tong Kiat (Anaesthesia), Thomas Lew (Anaesthesia)
Singapore General Hospital
Fong Kok Yong (Rheumatology), A. Balakrishnan (ENT)
National Dental Centre
Yuen Kwong Wing (Senior Consultant), Marianne Ong (Consultant)
NURSES:
NNI: Tan Il Fan
TTSH: Wong Mui Peng, Ranbhir Kaur, Lily Ng, Tina Tng, Ten Siew Hwa, Heng Mui Chu, Lily Toh
SGH: Elaine Yek, Eileen Robert Jacob, Li Ying, Jacqueline Teo
Khoo Teck Puat Hospital: Liu Xiao Yan
THERAPISTS:
Physiotherapy: Susan Niam, Seah Wei Wei
Occupational therapy: Chan Mei Leng, David Zhang
Speech therapy: Leow Li Pyn, Sharon Wu
MASSEURS:
Heng Li Hoong, Lynne Teo
李光耀资政悼文：没有她，我会是个不同的人
（2010-10-07）
李资政夫人葬礼 柯玉芝1920-2010
古人建立了哀悼的仪式，让家人和朋友表达共有的悲伤，并不对死亡表示畏惧或厌恶，而是对死者的尊敬，及安慰将会想念往生者的还活着的人。我想起了我外婆在约75年前逝世时的哀悼仪式。一连五个晚上，家人聚在一起赞扬她，并在一个专业送葬人的领导下，对她的去世嚎啕和哀悼。人们已经不再遵守这样的仪式。我们的悲伤将以个人对家里的女家长的悼念来表达。
在2003年10月当她首次中风时，我们强烈地感受到人总要面对死亡。
我和妻子自1947年便在一起，超过了我们四分之三的人生。我对她逝世的悲伤非言词所能表达。但今天，回想起我们共度的日子，我要选择歌颂她的人生。
在我们安静的时刻，我们会重温我们的生活和在一起的日子。我们是幸福的。在我们生命的重要转折点，我们得到命运的眷顾。
我是个在前莱佛士学院（Raffles College）的教育被中断的年轻人，没有固定的工作或专长。她的父母并不认为我是合适的女婿。但是她对我有信心。我们相互许下了承诺。
我在1946年9月决定到英国修读法律，她则回到前莱佛士学院，尝试争取每年只颁发两份的女皇奖学金。我们知道只有一名新加坡人能够获得奖学金。我有了所需的资源，因此便乘船前往英国，并希望她在得到奖学金后可以和我会合。如果得不到奖学金，她必须等我三年。
在隔年，也就是1947年6月，她获得了奖学金。但英国殖民地政府却不能为她在剑桥找到一个学位。
通过菲茨威廉学院（Fitzwilliam）的主管书记，我得知我的学监威廉·撒切尔（W S Thatcher）是格顿学院女院长（Mistress of Girton）巴特勒小姐的好朋友。他给我一封介绍信。巴特勒接见了我，我向她保证芝大概会考获“一等荣誉学位”，因为她在前莱佛士学院的表现比我杰出。我到剑桥时迟了一个学期，却以一等的成绩通过第一年的资格考试。她查核了芝的考试成绩，决定在同年10月让她入学。
我们之后便一直相伴。我们在1947年12月于史特拉福（Stratford-upon-Avon）秘密结婚。在剑桥，我们两人都全力以赴。她用了两年时间，考获法科双重第一荣誉学位。我也获得双重第一荣誉学位，名列榜首，但却用了三年时间。我们没有让导师失望。我们的第一荣誉学位让我们在生活上有了好的起步。回到新加坡后，我们同时在马六甲街生意源源不断的黎觉与王律师馆（Laycock & Ong）获得法律助理的职位。然后，为了让父母和朋友满意，我们在1950年9月第二次正式结婚。她从事产权转让和法律起草事务，我则从事诉讼。
我们的大儿子李显龙在1952年2月出生。她拿了一年的产假。同月，律师馆的高级合伙人黎觉，要我处理邮电制服职工联合会的案子。他们正同政府谈判更好的雇佣条件。谈判陷入僵局，他们决定罢工。这是场争取公众支持的战斗。我成功地通过报章和电台，传达了他们的要求的合理性。两个星期后，他们争取到政府的让步。因产假留在家中的芝，改进了我草拟的声明，让它们更简单和清楚。
这些年来，她影响了我的书写方式。现在。我使用简短的句子和主动的语气。在我们彼此适应和包容的同时，我们逐渐影响对方的方式和习惯。我们知道我们不能一直停留在不切实际的恋人的阶段，生活是永无休止的挑战，不断有新的问题需要解决和处理。
我们有了多两个孩子。玮玲在1955年出生，显扬则在1957年出生。在她的教导下，他们行为端正、有礼和能够体谅他人，从不因为父亲是总理而仗势欺人。身为律师，她有足够的收入，让我不用为孩子的将来操心。
她看到我在年轻时没有掌握华语所付出的代价。我们决定把三个孩子都送到华文幼稚园和学校。她确保他们在家里学好英文和马来文。她的培养，为他们在一个多语文的区域生活作好准备。
我们从不因为孩子的养育或钱财上的问题争吵。我们的收入和资产平均拥有。我们是彼此的知己。
她的生活乐趣很简单。我们在黄昏时在总统府的花园漫步，我也打高尔夫球来松懈心情。有了孙子女后，她会带他们到总统府内的池塘喂鱼和天鹅。然后，我们便游泳。她对周遭的环境很感兴趣，比如，许多不同种类的鸟被吃昆虫和植物的八哥和乌鸦赶走了。她发现花园的管理员清除杂草，也喷洒杀虫剂控制蚊子，因此消灭了鸟儿进食的昆虫。她阻止管理员这么做后，那些鸟儿便飞回来了。她把绽放香味的花朵放在游泳池四周，一边游泳一边闻花香让她开心不已。她知道每一种花的一般名称和学名。她对词汇有巨大的吸收能力。
她在前莱佛士学院就读时主修英国文学，并大量地阅读，包括简·奥斯丁（Jane Austen）和托尔金（JRR Tolkien）的著作、修昔底德（Thucydides）的《伯罗奔尼撒战争》（The Peloponnesian Wars）和维吉尔（Virgil）的《埃涅阿斯纪》（Aeneid），还有《牛津食品指南》（The Oxford Companion to Food）、《东南亚的海鲜》（Seafood of Southeast Asia）、《马来亚路边常见树木》（Roadside Trees of Malaya）和《新加坡鸟类》（Birds of Singapore）。
她协助我草拟人民行动党的党章。在1954年11月4日于维多利亚纪念堂召开的首次会议，她召集了创党成员的妻子，为要上台的人缝制徽章。我第一次在丹戎巴葛竞选时，我们在欧思礼路的住家，成为分配由支持者提供的车辆载送选民到投票站的总部。她警告我不可以相信我的新伙伴，也就是由林清祥领导的左派工会人士。对林清祥从未派他们的中学生助手到丹戎巴葛为我助选，却要求使用我的支持者提供来载送丹戎巴葛选民的车辆，她感到愤怒。她有辨识一个人的性格的特殊能力。有时候，她会警告我提防某些人，结果证明她通常是对的。
当我们快要加入马来西亚时，她告诉我我们不会成功，因为巫统的马来领导人有全然不同的生活方式，他们的政治也是以种族和宗教为根本的。我回答说我们必须取得成功，因为我们没有更好的选择。然而，她是对的。我们还不到两年就被迫脱离马来西亚。
当分离近在眉睫时，律政部长巴克负责草拟相关的法律条文。但他没有纳入联邦政府保证遵守公用事业局和柔佛州政府之间的两项水供协定的承诺。我请芝把这加进去。她草拟了这项承诺，作为马来西亚联邦修正宪法的一部分。她用词精准和严谨。这项修正条文成为分离协议的附录，我们并在联合国把它记录在案。
当时的共和联邦大臣亚瑟·巴谭里（Commonwealth Secretary Arthur Bottomley）表示，如果其他联邦要分离，他希望他们的作法能够像新加坡和马来西亚一样有条理。这是对巴克和芝的专业水平的赞赏。每次马来西亚的马来领导人恫言切断水供，这个马来西亚政府在宪法里作出的清楚和庄严的承诺都会让我感到放心，因为联合国安全理事会会站在我们这一边。
第一次中风后，她失去了左边的视野。这影响了她的阅读速度。她学习适应，以一把尺来帮助她阅读。她每天傍晚都游泳，并保持健康。她继续陪我出国，中风后仍维持活跃。她同家人和老朋友保持联系。她听她所收藏的音乐光碟，主要是古典音乐，加上一些经典金曲。她幽默地把生活分成“中风前”和“中风后”，就像“公元前”和“公元后”。
她对同她有交往的人都很友好和关切。她同她的女性保安人员谈笑，并以友善和开朗的方式纠正她们的英文文法和发音。她在国立脑神经医学院时，这些前保安人员前去探访她。我在这里感谢她们。（附录A）
2008年5月12日的第二次中风对她的健康影响更大。在一组杰出的医生、外科医生、治疗师和护士的帮助下（附录B），我鼓励她和为她打气。
她的护士、保安人员和女佣，都因为她的热情和体贴而非常喜欢她。她咳嗽时会用小枕头掩着嘴巴，她担心她们会受到感染。
她的头脑还是清醒的，但声音却变微弱了。我吻她的面颊时，她叫我不要太靠近她，以免感染到她的肺炎。我告诉她不用担心，我的生活活跃，医生说不太可能受到感染。在医院里收到一些桃子后，她吩咐女佣带一个回家让我在午餐时吃。我是她的生活的中心。
2008年6月24日的电脑断层扫描显示，她的右脑再次出血。药物和手术已经没有多大的作用，只能尽量让她感到舒适。
我在2008年7月3日把她带回家。医生估计她只能支撑几个星期。她却在两年三个月后的10月2日才逝世。
她保持清醒。这段时间让我和孩子逐渐接受不可避免的事实。在最后的几个月，她的功能衰退，她不能说话但仍然清醒。她每晚都期待我跟她讲话。
她告诉我她的最后愿望，是吩咐孩子把我们的骨灰放在一起，就像我们生前不分开一样。
她最后两年的生活是最艰难的。在接连的小中风后她卧床不起。她不能说话，但还是清醒的。每晚，她都会等我坐在她身边，告诉她我今天做了些什么和唸她最喜欢的诗。然后，她才会安睡。
对我们在一起的63年，我有珍贵的回忆。没有她，我会是个不同的人，过着完全不同的生活。她为我和我们的孩子奉献一生。我需要她的时候她总是在我身边。她度过了充满温暖和意义的一生。
我应该从她有意义的89年生命中得到安慰。但在这最后告别的时刻，我的心是充满悲伤的。
对我们在一起的63年，我有珍贵的回忆。没有她，我会是个不同的人，过着完全不同的生活。她为我和我们的孩子奉献一生。我需要她的时候她总是在我身边。她度过了充满温暖和意义的一生。
我应该从她有意义的89年生命中得到安慰。但在这最后告别的时刻，我的心是充满悲伤的。
Eulogy for Mama, by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong
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 fussedover 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 schoolprize that I ever won, for doing well in kindergarten - a pencil sharpener in the shape of a tiny trophy, which is still today in the display cabinet at home.
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 store along Orchard Road near the canal, now long gone. I think it was called Naina Mohamad and Sons.
I was interested in trains, like lots of little boys, and remember in particular one book all about trains displayed in the shop. It was a hardcover book, grey, 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, stiff cardboard rolls, the tubes which were at the centre of the rolls of fabric, and which 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 and then to join the adult library.
Sometimes when we found the books had been defaced, she would try to erase the graffiti and clean it up, 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 along the seafront at that time, 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 fooling around 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 in Britain and later in the US. 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. E-mail 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 faraway land. I would read and re-read 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. Instead, people Twitter. But I am not sure if Twitter 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 ones - Xiuqi and Yipeng - after their mother Ming Yang died.
She and their 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 or make-up by the make-up artists. 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 or bird's nest 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. I think the hot topic at the time was pretty girls serving beer in coffee shops.
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 2-1/2 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 of people from all walks of life. We stood receiving the visitors, all moved that so many had come.
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 at least 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 and milestones 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.
'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 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 or bird's nest 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. I think the hot topic at the time was pretty girls serving beer in coffee shops.
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 2-1/2 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 of people from all walks of life. We stood receiving the visitors, all moved that so many had come.
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 at least 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 and milestones 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.
'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.''
李显龙总理悼文：她的精神将永远存在
（2010-10-07）
李资政夫人葬礼 柯玉芝1920-2010
妈妈一直都是我们生命中的一部分。爸爸忙于政务，所以带大我、玲和扬三个的，主要是妈妈。她培育我们、教导我们，管教我们，照顾我们，也一直在呵护着我们。当我们每天放学回家时，她都会回家来用午餐和陪伴我们，过后又回去上班。
她即是慈母，也是严母。她定下明确的家规，鼓励我们向上，并为我们的成就感到骄傲。我一生中在学校赢得的第一份奖品，是在幼稚园因表现良好而获得的微型奖杯形状的铅笔刨。她把这个奖品摆在家里的陈列柜，直到今天依然在那里。
妈妈认为孩子是不可以宠的。我们小时候，她带我们从欧思礼路走到乌节路靠近水沟的一家小文具店。这家也卖书的文具店记得叫Naina Mohamad and Sons，好久以前就不在那里了。
我小时候对火车很感兴趣，店里的一本介绍各种火车的书，特别引起我的兴趣。那是一本硬皮书，因摆放太久而显得老旧，内容适合成人多过小孩。
我被这本书深深吸引，但却得来不易。我们每次光顾这店铺，我都会翻阅这本书，然后百般不舍地把它放回原位。
去了这家店好多次以后，妈妈终于答应把这本书买给我。这使我更加珍惜，多年以后仍收着。
所以，你可以想象妈妈不买昂贵的玩具给我们，而当祖父母这么做时，她是不同意的。但是，她会去从前谐街（High St）的布店，把捆布料的硬纸皮管子带回家。
店家卖完布料后，会把这些管子丢弃。这些管子不值钱，却很好玩，可以当成“望远镜”，也可以当剑来耍，或用来玩各种各样的游戏。我自己有孩子以后，也跟妻子学妈妈这么做。
当我们比较大一点时，妈妈就带我们到史丹佛路的旧国家图书馆去。每隔一星期，她会带我们三个到图书馆的儿童部门，每人借一叠书。后来我们比较大了，就让我们自己去。当我们发现书本有污迹时，妈妈会尝试去除这些污迹，如果不成功，就会在还书时告诉图书馆管理员。到了我们晋升到成人部门的时候，相信已经读了数百本书。我们也已在那时培养了爱读书的终生嗜好。
我们以前也定期到巴西班让拜访外公外婆。他们住在海边，涨潮时，海水高及防波堤。我们在海里游泳，妈妈就坐在堤上看着我们。我几乎已学会游泳了，但泳术还不到家，有一次戴着游泳镜和水下通气管在海中嬉水时，竟差点溺毙。妈妈见状连衣服都来不及换，就跳进海里救我。她一点都不觉得这是儿戏。
后来我和弟弟出国念大学时，她隔空对我们关怀备至。她擅于编织，织了很多件毛衣让我们保暖。我还收着其中一件我最喜欢的红棕色的，虽然手肘处已经补了很多次，但还是很保暖。
我们在我出国期间依然保持密切联系。每周一次，我会坐下来写一封很长的家书，而妈妈和爸爸也会各给我写一封很长的信。
我在剑桥时，信件需五天才寄到，在美国时则更长，约七至十天。剑桥离家很远，当时又没有电邮或网络电话Skype，打国际电话费用很贵，要拨也很不容易。
我殷切期盼收到家里每周捎来的信，而父母也殷切期盼儿子在异乡独自生活的消息。今时今日，互联网沟通即时又免费，非常方便，使写信沦为一门即将消失的艺术。互联网真的改善了人与人之间的沟通吗？我想未必。
我和显扬成家后，她把她的两个媳妇都当成亲生女儿看待。我们有了孩子后，她帮我们照顾。我的大女儿修齐和大儿子毅鹏的母亲名扬去世之后，她特别照顾他们。她和婆婆看管女佣，每天傍晚带着两个小的去散步，弥补了我这个单亲父亲的不足。
光阴似箭。即使到了晚年，妈妈也以慈母之心关怀着她的子女。每当我上电视或见报时，她都会留意。她也点评我的衣着、举止或化妆师的化妆术。
某天傍晚，我跟父母出席了一场特别长的活动，她责备我说：“你闷透了，而这都写在你的脸上。”我不否认。当我患淋巴肿瘤时，她再次为我的子女操心。她也替我操心，总是烦恼着我有没有吃足够营养的食品或燕窝，有没有把身体养好，以对抗癌症。
我们家每个星期天中午会在欧思礼路的父母亲家里举行午餐聚会。从前，因为孙子们都在，所以热热闹闹的。后来他们长大了，不是当兵就是出国念书，午餐聚会就回到从前的样子，就只有爸爸、妈妈、他们的三个子女和我们的妻子参加。还有家中最小的孙子韶武。
两年前五月份的某个星期天，我们照常举行家庭午餐聚会。当天上午，我刚出席了淡滨尼的选区活动。我告诉她，他们正在热烈辩论是否允许脚踏车在人行道上行驶。她提醒我，以前我在剑桥念书时，多数时候是步行的，而我也曾写信回家申诉受到脚踏车的威胁。因为脚踏车总是静悄悄地出现在我身后，一点警示也没有，只会发出阴森的轮转声。
这些我都忘光了，但她却没记错。她说：“我年纪越大，能记得的是越久以前的事。”不过她也会留意时下最热门的课题，我记得当时的热门课题好像是漂亮女子在咖啡店当助手。
隔天我在办公室时，保安人员告诉我妈妈在家里跌倒，玮玲正紧急把她送入新加坡国立脑神经医学院。她刚刚第二次中风。过去的两年半来，她和家人都过得不容易。现在，她安息了。
过去几天，社会各界对我母亲表示哀悼及分享他们对她的回忆，令我和家人深受感动。所有认识她的人，以及更多只能透过电视画面、媒体报道或听闻去认识她的人，心灵都被她触动。他们感应到她的特别之处，也见到她默默地为新加坡作出的贡献。
数以千计的人到斯里淡马锡吊唁。有人鞠躬行礼、有人站着默默祈祷，有人划十字圣号或双手合十。有人用指转动念珠，一名妇女则转动转经筒。许多人都明显地感动。
妈妈的子女、我们的妻子，都站在她身旁，一一谢礼，就跟妈妈生前陪伴在我们身旁那样。
妈妈在我们的一生中都相随左右。我们一同高兴过、一同悲伤过，一同度过了许多关键的时刻及里程碑。
现在我们所有的人都得学习适应没有她的日子。但是，她的精神将永远存在，保存在她的孩子和孙子身上、保存在我们对她的珍贵记忆中，以及保存在她抚养成人的我们身上。
Eulogy by Lee Hsien Yang
ONE of the earliest photos of my happy childhood shows me at Fraser's Hill, a chubby 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 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 eight, 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 activities, including swimming, canoeing, the military band, the Singapore Youth Orchestra.
Mama often would say she is a worrier by nature, and she must have worried. 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 favourite was Bach, which we played at the wake and earlier; 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 was a tuba who dreamed of being a different musical instrument - a piccolo, a trumpet - but concluded it was best to be himself.
In many ways, this represented Mama, in modern IT jargon, we call her a WYSIWYG person - 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 sweaters, 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 NUH 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 Shaowu 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; she thought 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-year 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 to manage a lifelong 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 crisis. Quite the contrary, we have faced all major crises in our lives together, sharing our fears and hopes, and our subsequent grief and exultation. These moments of crisis have bonded us closer together. With the years, the number of special ties which we two have shared 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, and our three sons, Shengwu, Huanwu and Shaowu, miss Mama dearly. We will cherish her memory.
'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.'
李显扬：父母鹣鲽情深 见证感情真谛
（2010-10-07）
李资政夫人葬礼 柯玉芝1920-2010
2003年那一次中风，让李光耀资政夫妇的角色对调。李资政一直被李夫人照顾得无微不至，但是李夫人中风后身体状况每况愈下，李资政毫不迟疑地改变作息，反过来帮助和鼓励李夫人，并以无限的关怀给予李夫人最大的安慰。
李显扬在昨天的悼词中表示，父母不离不弃，相濡以沫的爱情，激励他和妻子林学芬，了解婚姻是一生相伴的承诺，无论是在健康或疾病中。
李显扬是家中的幼子，他透露虽然妈妈鼓励三个孩子追求卓越的学业成绩，但是他从来没有感到压力。他认为妈妈有她自己一套教育子女的方法。就像自己小时候学走路时那样，妈妈虽然会放手让他自己走，但却会守候在一旁，必要时出手相扶。
“她会一边支持我参加许多课外活动，例如游泳、划独木舟、军乐队以及新加坡青年乐团，一边却担心我的课业会受影响。妈妈常说她是一个天生杞人忧天的人。幸好她这些忧虑最后都没有成真。”
或许就是这些忧患意识，让她更谨言慎行，树立了她那一代妇女的优雅典范。又或许因为她的杞人忧天，让她经常在李资政身旁提点，成为他的贤内助。
但是李夫人也和许多为人母亲的一样，关心子女的婚姻。李显扬追忆自己出国读大学的时候，妈妈如何以敏锐的观察力，在他信件的字里行间，察觉林学芬的存在，并主动邀请她到总统府官邸喝茶。他很庆幸两人相处融洽，并且有许多共同的爱好。
李显扬和林学芬在1981年结婚后，李夫人也殷切地希望抱孙子。李显扬忆述，开始的时候她是很婉转给予暗示，但是到了1984年，当他在英国上军事课程的时候，妈妈再也按捺不住，开门见山地来信说：“我能理解你在婚后一两年想要有自己的二人世界，但现在真的是时候开始建立自己的家庭了。”
李显扬还记得妈妈第一次听到林学芬怀孕时高兴的样子。她一口气织了许多婴儿鞋。有蓝色，白色，柠檬色和薄荷绿色的，就是没有粉红色。
“她一定是有先见之明。我们的第一个孩子绳武，果然是个男孩！到今天我们还收着那些婴儿鞋。”
李显扬还透露了李夫人传统和慈爱的一面。当他的第二个孩子桓武，在隔年出世的时候，李夫人当时就很高兴地说：“谢天谢地是个男孩。今年是虎年，如果宝宝是一个老虎女，我不敢想象要把她嫁出去会有多困难！”
李显扬第三个儿子韶武，是在相隔十年后的1995年出世的，当时李夫人74岁，已经不再期待能抱孙了。李显扬把幼子形容为意外的“花红”。而李夫人也很开心地宣称，她现在有一个女孙和六个男孙。
“妈妈说中国人有一种说法叫七星一月，所以我们需要再生一个男孙来使她这个家庭更圆满。可惜学芬或何晶都没有遂她的愿。”
李显扬提到母亲和父亲坚贞不移的夫妻情份时，情绪也跟着激动起来。他回想起2003年10月，爸爸刚过了80岁的生日，妈妈就不幸地遭受第一次中风。这使到妈妈的身体变得非常虚弱。她行动不便，很多事情都无法亲力亲为，这对她是一个巨大的挫折。
“虽然婚后爸爸一直习惯让妈妈照顾饮食起居，但现在他们的角色对调。爸爸开始从旁协助妈妈，哄妈妈，鼓励妈妈进行复健。他持续不断地以无限的耐心、爱心、善意和幽默来关怀妈妈……”
李显扬说到这里一阵哽咽：“爸爸调整了自己的作息来迁就妈妈不断变化的病情和身体状况。他的坚定不移的爱、奉献和关怀……对她一定是个极大的安慰。这也激励我和学芬，了解婚姻是一辈子的伴侣关系，不论健康或疾病。”
李显扬也透露，当他在1981年结婚的时候，李资政曾写了一封信给他们夫妻俩，给他们一些婚姻上的意见。李资政提到他和李夫人的关系时说：“……我们从来不容许自己在对方面临危机的时刻，让对方感到孤单或被抛弃。相反地，我们一起面对了生命中所有的重大危机，我们共同分担恐惧和希望，也一起分享欢喜或悲伤。这些危机让我们彼此靠得更近。这些年来，属于我们的这些特别联系与日俱增。有些我们也与孩子们分享。”
李显扬表示，李资政一直把这份爱和承诺贯彻在最后的这几个艰难的岁月里。
“我和学芬，我们的三个儿子，绳武、桓武和韶武，非常想念妈妈。我们会珍惜和她的回忆。”
Eulogy by Lee Wei Ling
MAMA was the steadying influence on me for most of my life. I have always felt strongly about injustices, or the unnecessary suffering of humans and animals.
I used to be very upset when the police came to shoot stray dogs in the Istana grounds. So from young, I was perpetually on 'missions' - as I saw them - to right wrongs, most of which were not my duty to right.
Mama understood how passionately I felt about these missions. She did not stop me but would calmly put things into perspective for me and gently bring me down to earth.
When I was miserable because I failed in a mission, she was simply there for me, knowing words would be cold comfort.
As I grew older, I was more controlled in the way I took on challenges, and confided less in Mama. But her very presence when I failed in any mission was comforting.
Between Mama and me, there were times when we seemed to read each other's mind. She intuitively knew when something was bothering me and would often pre-empt my request for mundane items just before I verbalised my needs.
Once, I e-mailed her: 'I need a new toothbrush.' She replied: 'I must be telepathic. I just took one out from my store for you. But one day, the commissariat will no longer be around. If you don't know the word 'commissariat', look it up in the dictionary.'
Once, I had an accident while on a holiday in New Zealand. The car was totalled and it was a miracle I was not killed.
I carried on with my hiking plans after getting another vehicle from the car rental company. I did not inform my parents and thought to myself, 'you are real cool'.
But I suppose the worry that my injury or death would have hurt them was subconsciously present in my mind. So when I landed at Changi Airport, I immediately called home and said, 'Ma, I am home safe'.
I had forgotten that my usual habit was to greet my parents only when I got home. My mother realised that I must have been in danger.
She told my cousin Kim Li: 'Something happened to Ling on that trip. I rather not know what it was.'
Mama's (and Papa's) most significant influence on me was to teach me to treat people from all walks of life with the same empathy and kindness. Neither parent taught me in words but by action.
When the friends of our black and white maids visited our home, Mama treated the visitors with courtesy and as equals. Our maids felt that their mistress, who also happened to be the Prime Minister's wife, gave them a lot of face in treating their friends so kindly.
She encouraged me to treat the children of the staff who lived in the Istana grounds as friends without any thought of status.
To this day I remember Flora, Stella, John and Aloysious, the children of the butler, Peter, a Catholic Indian. I played rounders with them, and we watched the black and white TV in their small sitting room.
Over the years since we parted company, I have met Flora or Stella in the hospital on the occasions their children were ill. They usually recognised me before I recognised them and they would call out, 'Hi Ling, how have you been?'
The years fall away - and we are back in the time when we played together, the children of the Prime Minister and the children of the butler, as equals. Mama wouldn't have tolerated any other attitude on my part.
She taught my brothers and me not to behave as the Prime Minister's children. Flora and Stella came to my mother's wake.
On the evening of Aug 9, 1965, the British High Commissioner to Malaysia, Viscount Anthony Head, arrived at Sri Temasek to see my father urgently.
I was playing under the porch in my T-shirt and shorts. I asked him: 'Do you want to see my father?' I did not think I was rude. I would have greeted any unfamiliar adult who arrived at our doorstep in the same way, regardless of how distinguished he looked.
Mama herself treated people as her equals, regardless of their status in society. Even during this last illness, she still treated her Women Security Officers - or WSOs - with kindness and courtesy.
Many of her former WSOs SMSed me for permission to visit her. In the initial months after her devastating strokes in May 2008, she was able to recognise them and continued to treat them as her young friends.
One WSO related to me how Mama, even after the third and nearly fatal bleed into her brain, joked with the young woman: 'When are you going to have babies? You should not just be studying your books all the time!'
Mama was the one I ran to when I was hurt as a child, when I felt played out, or when I was simply sad because I felt life had been unfair to me or to my pets or to an injured wild animal on the Istana grounds.
As I grew older, I stopped bothering her with these 'trivialities'. But she continued to be there for me when I needed her most.
Mama taught me how to xue zuo ren - be an upright human being. On rare occasions when I was a child, she punished me by caning. But it was always in circumstances when I knew I deserved the punishment.
The final 2-1/2 years of Mama's life were painful - eased only by Papa's enduring and limitless love.
But we must remember Mama had 87 years of happiness, beginning from her childhood in a close-knit family, through her school years, and then university.
She found a perfect partner and spouse in my father. She was happy with and proud of her three children. She enjoyed and was successful in her profession.
While I mourn Mama's passing, I am grateful to have had her for 55 years. I am who I am partly because of my genetic make-up, but also because of the way in which I was brought up.
I firmly believe that you should treat others in the same way you wish others to treat you. Mama taught me that social hierarchies exist, but we must not treat people differently according to their position in society.
李玮玲：母亲通过身教 传授做人道理
（2010-10-07）
李资政夫人葬礼 柯玉芝1920-2010
父母对所有的人一视同仁的态度，深深地影响女儿李玮玲医生，让她自小明白不能以总理孩子的身份自居，也不能因他人的社会地位而影响自己待人处事的方式。
李玮玲在葬礼上致悼文时说，虽然她为母亲的逝世感到悲伤，不过也感激她过去55年的陪伴。她说，自己的个性与基因结构有关系，但也和如何被抚养长大息息相关。
“我是坚信，自己希望怎么被对待，就该如此对待他人的。母亲教育我社会阶级是存在，不过我们的处事方式不应该因为他人的社会地位而有所不同。”
李玮玲是新加坡国立脑神经医学院院长。在她眼中，父母对所有的人一视同仁的态度影响她最深，而他们是通过身教，不是言教来传授做人的道理。
公平地对待每个人
她说，母亲鼓励她不能有阶级之分，得把总统府园地里的职员的孩子当作朋友。她记得自己曾和管家的孩子一起玩乐，也一起观看黑白电视节目。
当他们分道扬镳多年后，李玮玲时不时会碰见管家的孩子带孩子到医院看病。他们通常会先认得出她，并开口向她问好。
“时光仿佛倒流，我们回到了总理的孩子可以和佣人的孩子平起平坐，一起玩乐的时光。”
李玮玲说，母亲不会容忍她有阶级之分的态度，也一直教育三个孩子不能以总理孩子的身份自居。
即使李夫人病倒后，她依旧公平地对待每个人，包括昔日的女保镖。这些曾与李夫人有近距离接触的保镖曾发简讯给李玮玲，希望能够探访李夫人。
2008年5月，即李夫人中风后的初期，她依旧可以认得这些女保镖，并继续把她们当成自己的年轻朋友。
李玮玲说，其中一名女保镖还告诉她，母亲如何与她谈笑风生，而当时母亲刚第三次脑出血，险些丧命。李夫人当时笑问女保镖：“你几时要去生孩子？你不该只是整天念书！”
在念悼文时一度眼眶泛红，李玮玲的悼文也显示李夫人身为人母所不为人知的一面。
她说，小时候无论是自己受伤，还是觉得被出卖，或自觉生活对自己、宠物或受伤的野生动物不公平而感到难过时，她总是会向母亲寻找慰藉。
“长大后，我不再为这些‘小事’而烦她。不过每当我需要她时，她依然在我左右。”
从小到大，李夫人也是稳住她的一股冲动。李玮玲说，她自小就觉得有使命感，碰到不平之处就要行侠仗义，即使多数时候她并没有义务这么做。
她说，母亲了解她对这些使命感的热情，因此不会阻止她，总会心平气和地与她讨论，让她看清事实及事件的意义。当有关的任务失败时，李夫人知道言语的作用不大，因此只是默默地陪着她。
长大后，李玮玲应对挑战的能力加强，也因此较少向母亲倾诉。不过，每当她的任务失败时，李夫人的存在总是犹如定心丸给她慰藉。
母女俩心有灵犀
虽然李夫人是慈母，不过在必要时还是会体罚儿女。李玮玲说，她知道自己应该受处罚，而母亲的体罚就是要让她“学做人”。
李玮玲昨天在葬礼上也忆述母女俩是多么心有灵犀。她说，有时她虽未开口向母亲倾吐心声，母亲总是知道她在想什么，甚至能在生活琐事上预知她的需要。
有一次，李玮玲发现需要新的牙刷了，便电邮给母亲。母亲回复电邮时说：“我有心电感应，已给你准备了。不过，有一天我这个军需供应部（commissariat）将会关闭。如果你不懂commissariat是什么，那就去查字典。”
另一次，当李玮玲在新西兰度假时发生车祸，整辆车子毁不成形，所幸没有丧命。她到租车公司换了辆车，继续度假。她没告诉父母亲发生了车祸，还暗自认为自己很“酷”。
然而，李玮玲在潜意识中还是担心自己若遭遇不测，将会伤害到父母。当她抵达樟宜机场后，便立刻拨电给母亲报平安，忘记自己通常是在抵达家门后才向父母问好。
李夫人当时便知道女儿遇到危险，过后还对一名亲戚说：“玲在那趟旅程中出事了。我宁可不要知道发生什么事。”
在总结李夫人的一生时，李玮玲说母亲最后两年半的生命是痛苦的，而这些痛楚只是因父亲持久及无止境的爱而减缓。
“不过，大家要记住母亲有87年的快乐时光。她在有凝聚力的家庭度过童年，之后上学及上大学。她和父亲是天生的一对，他们是完美的伙伴及伴侣。她也为三个孩子感到开心和自豪，并享受自己的专业，获得成功。”
Eulogy by granddaughter Li Xiuqi, 29
I RACKED my brains as to what to tell you that you haven't already heard many times. By now, you have heard all about what a remarkable woman my grandmother was.
How she was an excellent wife and mother; how she was kind-hearted, sharp-minded and a tower of strength.
And indeed she was.
But now I'm going to share something else. As my granddad has said, after 2003, Nai Nai divided her life into BS and AS - Before Stroke and After Stroke. I'd like to give you a glimpse into Nainai's life After Stroke.
Before Stroke, she was a power woman. She ran the Oxley Road household like a tight ship. She paid the maids, bought the fish, quality-checked the cooking, and peeled my grandfather's fruit and packed his suitcase.
She exercised rigorously every day and ate not a single extra calorie, which preserved her hourglass figure for her many gorgeous cheongsams. She was no-nonsense and did not believe in making small talk or nattering on the phone with other women.
Then her stroke struck in 2003 while she was in London. Shocked by the news, my friends and I prayed fervently and the next day she made a miraculous recovery.
I flew over to visit her in the East London hospital. She had regained consciousness and the doctor was asking her a standard set of questions to assess her cognitive function.
Questions such as 'Is it day or night? Do you know who I am? Do you know where you are?'
She was answering until he got to the question 'Do you know who is the Prime Minister?' She got cross and said 'Of course I know who the Prime Minister is!' and after that she refused to answer any more questions because she felt the doctor was talking to her like she was stupid.
That was when I knew she was back to normal.
While she was still away, her children quickly seized the opportunity to renovate and elderly-proof the old Oxley Road house.
They levelled the bathroom floor and installed a shower. This was a big deal because all these years, my grandparents had still been bathing with the old-fashioned system - scooping from a tub of water the same way they bathed me when I was little!
So my granny came home to find her tub gone and a shower in its place. She was not pleased at all and refused to bathe at home for several days, choosing to bathe in the Istana instead.
Many things changed at Oxley Road. Now, my granddad had to peel his own fruit, peel her fruit, pack his own suitcase and make his own Milo.
For the first time in a while, he had to handle money so he could pay the maids. My granny locked the money in one place, and kept the keys to the lock in another totally unrelated place.
My granddad complained that she needed a system but she retorted that she had a system. And that was that.
For the first time in her life, my granny was helpless. She experienced a physical handicap and it did give her frustration. But I knew that she was also secretly happy to be taken care of. And she acquired the glow of a girl who knew she was adored.
More changes were in store. My family was a little perturbed when my granny started showing personality changes.
Her memory, which used to be sharp as a tack, became a little blunted. She grumbled about this but I told her what's the big deal, that's how I feel all the time.
She began to collect colourful things like ribbons and pinwheels. She had a new-found interest in old nursery rhymes and lullabies that she used to know. She wondered if she was entering second childhood.
She started to natter on the phone like other women. She started to joke around with her security officers.
For a time my family worried that she had Alzheimer's but I don't think she did. Her wit was as rapier-sharp as ever. No, what I saw was a woman who for the first time could lighten up and smell the flowers.
I would say, and I heard many others say as well, that they felt she became less fearsome and more approachable. I personally enjoyed the new her very much.
I decided I would like to travel with my grandparents as much as I could, see the world and spend time with them too.
We went on many trips in four years. And no, the State did not pay for my plane tickets, so not to worry, Ministry of Finance.
Those were happy memories. We went to France where we enjoyed walks in rose gardens and along riverbanks. We went to Italy where my granny surpassed us all by polishing off two huge scoops of gelato - before dinner.
Once we went on a long trip with multiple legs, from Paris to the Middle East. My granny swears by bananas to keep the digestive tract working smoothly. I was just amazed at how she managed to supply herself with them.
She carried one in her hand-carry luggage; when we got to our first destination, the ambassador's wife produced more bananas for her; and when we arrived at the next country, my aunt Kim Li flew in, handed her a bag and said 'Here are the bananas you asked for'. An unbroken supply chain halfway around the world.
In Tokyo, my granny went to Tokyo Hands, a seven-storey DIY store. She has always been on a lifelong quest for the Perfect Hairbrush.
She found a nice hairbrush there. It wasn't expensive. But even purchasing it was a struggle for her because Nai Nai has always been frugal to a fault.
In the end, the hairbrush won. Nai Nai said, 'Well, I'm already so old, I can afford to buy it', and put down the money. She went home smiling, hairbrush in hand.
That was the thing about my granny. Some days, the aches and pains would act up, she felt old, she would be grouchy and critical.
But there was something about her that made you always want to please her. When you hit on something that she really liked, her whole person would light up and she would continue to praise it forever and ever.
Such was the case when we went to Shanghai. Once I bought her a pair of black Puma shoes. They were a spiffy pair with a stripe in Ferrari red. They cost me very little but it didn't matter.
She adored them. She felt cool in them and every single time she wore them she would beam and feel very pleased with herself and I'd feel satisfied that my money was supremely well-spent.
Once my granny discovered the joy of MP3 players, she accumulated more than me. Some were gifts from other people who, like me, liked to please her. She was young at heart. Sadly, her 80-something-year-old body gave her aches and pains all the time.
However, she was a survivor and never gave up trying to overcome it. She tried everything, from sleeping with little pillows in various positions to support her body, to acupuncture, sports massage, swimming an hour a day, and so on.
One time I arrived at her house to find she had gotten rubber balls with blunt rubber spikes, like sea urchins. Trigger balls, they are called.
Nai Nai recommended them to me and the two of us spent the evening sitting on the balls on the floor, massaging the muscles in our butt.
I always felt sad that her ageing body did not allow her to do the things that her soul wanted to do, such as roam the streets window-shopping, eat more desserts, or move around freely.
The most terrible thing was when she got locked-in syndrome and could no longer move nor communicate. It pained me, imagining how agonising it would be to be in her position, just lying there for months while others ate, drank, moved and talked.
Ever the survivor, she overcame multiple infections in her locked-in state, infections that people thought would kill her.
A big Thank You must go to her wonderful security officers and nursing staff who grew to love her and facilitated her life with a lot of love.
The post-stroke Nai Nai was a person who was full of life. If I could spend more years with her, and if she was able-bodied, there would still be many things to see, do, talk about and taste. And indeed I have full assurance that one day, I will.
李修齐：中风后的奶奶 生活更多姿彩
（2010-10-07）
李资政夫人葬礼 柯玉芝1920-2010
中风前，她是一个“女超人”，一个人把欧思礼的家打理得井井有条。她给佣人支付薪水、买鱼、监督烹调的品质、为李资政剥果皮和整理行李。她每天积极运动，绝不摄取多余的卡路里，以保持着能穿下那些高贵旗袍的玲珑身段。
中风后，她变得像个享受着家人疼爱的小女孩，不再令人畏惧，她喜欢吃雪糕，好像过第二次童年。
李夫人唯一的孙女，李显龙总理的长女李修齐（29岁）在悼文中描述李夫人中风前后性格上的转变，追忆挚爱的“奶奶”。
李修齐说，“奶奶”把自己的一生分成“中风前”和“中风后”两个阶段。“中风前”，她一丝不苟，也不会随便闲聊或在电话里和其他女人聊天。
2003年李夫人在伦敦第一次中风，接到这个消息后，惊愕的修齐和朋友们不断为她祈祷，第二天她奇迹般恢复，修齐过后飞到伦敦的医院探望她。
“她的意识已经恢复，医生问她一系列的问题以评估她的认知功能，比如‘现在是白天还是晚上？’‘我是谁？’‘你知道自己在什么地方吗？’，她都一一回答。后来医生问她‘你知道谁是总理吗？’她有点恼火说：‘我当然知道谁是总理！’之后她就拒绝回答其他问题，因为她觉得医生把她当傻瓜。当时我就知道，她没事了。”
在她回到新加坡前，孩子们赶紧把欧思礼的家装修一番，让它更适合老人居住。他们把厕所的地板修平、装了新的花洒。
修齐说：“那可是一件大事，因为那么多年来，我祖父母的房子一直用着我小时候的冲凉方式——从水缸里舀水，一勺一勺地淋浴。当我奶奶回家发现她的水缸被花洒取代后，一点也不高兴，她好几天拒绝在家洗澡，选择在总统府洗澡后才回家。”
在那之后，欧思礼路的李家出现了许多变化。
“我的爷爷得自己剥果皮、为奶奶剥果皮、收拾自己的行李和给自己泡美禄。他也开始需要找出钱放在什么地方以给佣人发薪水。我奶奶把钱锁在一个地方，再把钥匙放在另一个毫不相关的地方。我爷爷抗议说她应该要有一套机制，她坚持认为自己有。那是第一次我奶奶感到无助。但是我知道其实她暗自高兴着，她流露出一种女性被人疼爱着的喜悦。”
中风后的李夫人，性格也开始出现一些变化，记忆力不如过去敏锐甚至有些模糊。她因此感觉焦虑，不过修齐告诉她，这没什么大不了，自己也经常如此。她开始收集一些色彩缤纷的东西，比如彩带和小风车。她开始喜欢哼小时候学的童谣，甚至认为自己进入了第二段童年。她开始像其他女人一样在电话中聊天，也会和保镖们开玩笑。
“有段时间，我们家人以为她患了失智症，但我知道不是，因为她的幽默反应和以前一样敏捷。我见到的是一个会因为闻到花香而快乐的女人，我和许多人一样觉得她不再那么令人畏惧，变得更和蔼亲切。我非常喜欢这个新的她。”
那段期间，李修齐觉得自己应该多花点时间陪伴祖父母，于是她在那四年里自费陪伴他们到许多国家访问。有一次到意大利时，李夫人一人在餐前就吃下两大球的低脂意大利雪糕。
李修齐在悼文中也分享了她和祖父母从巴黎到中东旅游的趣事。
“我奶奶坚信香蕉可以保持消化系统运作正常，我对她能够有不间断的香蕉供应感到十分好奇。在她的手提行李中有一串香蕉，我们到第一站时，大使夫人提供更多香蕉。当我们飞到另一个国家时，我的一个阿姨飞到那里，把一个袋子交给她说：‘你要的香蕉’，在地球另一端还有补给。”
修齐记忆中的奶奶向来十分节俭，连买一个简单的发刷都得经过谨慎的考虑。她们在东京逛一座七层楼的日用品商店Tokyo Hands，李夫人看中一把发刷，价格不高，但是她还是挣扎了一番才决定买下。当时她说：“我已经那么老了，有能力买下它”，然后付了钱，快快乐乐地离开。
晚年的李夫人病痛缠身，有时会显得烦躁，不过身边的一些小事也可能让她兴奋很长的时间。
“有一次我们到上海，我买了一双彪马（Puma）黑鞋给她，那是双有法拉利红色线条的漂亮鞋子。不贵，但她很喜欢。她穿上了觉得很酷，每次穿着都很兴奋，我也因为钱花得非常值得而感到欣慰。”
喜欢音乐的李夫人晚年也喜欢收集MP3播放机，她一直保持着年轻的心境。年过80后，她身上的病痛越来越多，然而她是个永不言弃的斗士，不断努力克服生理上的痛楚。
“她做一切的尝试，如睡觉时用一个小枕头支撑着以转换姿势、针灸、运动、按摩、每天游一小时的泳等等。有一次我到她家看到她有一些像海胆一样带刺的橡胶球。它们是机能触发球（trigger ball）。我们祖孙俩一整个傍晚在地板上坐着那些球，按摩着臀背部肌肉。”
“每次想到她老化的身体不能让她做她心想做的事，比如逛街、吃甜品或者自由自在地活动，就让我很难过。更让人痛心的是，她患上闭锁综合征（locked-in syndrome）不能动也不能言语。她是一个勇者，当别人都认为她可能熬不过了，但她还是战胜了无数次感染。”
修齐在悼文中也感谢照顾她奶奶的保安人员和医护人员，感激他们用无限的爱心延续她的生命。
她说：“中风后的奶奶生活更多彩，但愿我能有更多时间与她共处，但愿她的身体更健康，我们还有更多的东西可以看、可以做、可以聊、可以品尝。我相信，有一天我可以这么做。”
Eulogy by Li Shengwu, 25, eldest son of Lee Hsien Yang
ONE of our family's abiding institutions is the Sunday Lunch. Our three (once four) generations gather at Oxley Road on Sundays and share a meal.
When I was little, the grandchildren tended to eat far too fast and play far too loudly. I remember Nai Nai's good humour as we mistook her rocking chair for a climbing frame. In lieu of a television, Nai Nai provided a tall, well-stocked bookshelf next to the children's table, and thereby contributed much of my early childhood literacy.
She chose our books well, and the selection was expansive, ranging from Peter Rabbit to a picture book on exotic animals (on the lowest shelf), from Roald Dahl to Arthurian legend (on the higher shelves). I never saw what was on the highest shelf; it was a very tall bookshelf and I was not a very tall child.
Little did I suspect that the best books were on a yet higher shelf; up the stairs and in Nai Nai's bedroom, where she kept the accumulated stories of a lifetime's reading - a hoard of Chaucer and Shakespeare, the Sejarah Melayu, Confucius and Mencius - to which the cheery bookshelf downstairs was a mere shadow or stepping stone.
The King Arthur of Roger Lancelyn Green occupied the downstairs bookshelf; the King Arthur of Thomas Malory held court upstairs.
Without her urging or insistence, I inherited her love of the kind of stories that are now called fairy tale or fantasy, but used to be, simply, stories. It took me more than a decade to discover The Odyssey, Beowulf and Le Morte D'Arthur, but Nai Nai had the patience to sow the kind of seeds that take long to bear fruit.
Nai Nai had the benefit of a classical education, and upon returning from my studies overseas, I discovered that she had long been reading the Greek philosophers that I had of late come to appreciate.
Well-worn copies of Plato's Republic and Symposium occupied places near her bedside. I wish we'd had the chance to talk about them.
It is well to say that Nai Nai lives on in memory, but she was more than memory. She was a great person; lively, quick-minded and kind.
Her passing is to us an inconsolable loss, and it cuts keenly. Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings has for decades been a family favourite. In its final chapters, at the parting of the fellowship, the wizard Gandalf counsels, 'Go in peace! I will not say, 'Do not weep!', for not all tears are an evil.'
Ye Ye and Nai Nai's lives are a story to occupy many volumes. Coming late into the narrative, I am a minor character who has missed many chapters. I cannot bear witness to the earlier plot twists, climaxes and denouements. But I know that they have loved one another steadfastly, through many trials and joys. The Bard tells us:
'Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose Worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.'
Nai Nai and Ye Ye have been, to me, an example of that kind of love.
Nai Nai's grandchildren arrived relatively late in her life, and she loved each one dearly.
When Huanwu and I were children, we became entangled in a book on Cat's Cradle, a game of string figures played with a loop of twine and four hands. Seeing our difficulty, Nai Nai carefully unknotted our initial attempts, and showed us new spiderweb configurations mentioned nowhere in the book's pages.
She passed to her grandchildren a love of learning and reading, as well as the kind of knowledge not found in print.
Samuel Butler wrote:
'I fall asleep in the full and certain hope
That my slumber shall not be broken;
And that though I be all-forgetting,
Yet shall I not be forgotten,
But continue that life in the thoughts and deeds
Of those I loved.'
We love you, Nai Nai, and we will remember you.
李绳武：奶奶传递对学习和阅读的热爱
李资政夫人葬礼 柯玉芝1920-2010
孙子李绳武在葬礼上追念奶奶熟读中西经典著作，学识广博，为孙子们从小打开文学之门，并把她对学习和阅读的热爱，以及书本上找不到的知识传授给他们。
绳武是李光耀资政三子显扬的长子。他在去年8月考获英国牛津大学哲学、政治与经济系全系第一名，随后在牛津大学攻读经济学硕士学位。
他特别提到奶奶以放满书本的高高书架取代了电视机，引导他们从小培养阅读兴趣。这个高得让小孙子们觉得高不可及的书架上的藏书，帮助他在童年就开始锻炼读写能力。
书架上的藏书题材广泛，从彼得兔（Peter Rabbit）到奇异动物图书，从罗尔德·达尔（Roald Dahl）到亚瑟王传奇（Arthurian Legend），都是经历时间考验的儿童经典文学。
他还回想阅读兴趣既深且广的奶奶卧房里的藏书还包括乔叟（Geoffrey Chaucer）和莎士比亚、《马来纪年》（Sejarah Melayu）、孔子和孟子等著作，说明了东西方古典著作都是她熟读的读物。
他说奶奶虽没特别鼓励，但自己已继承了她对童话和幻想故事的喜爱。
他感叹自己用了超过10年的时间，才发现了荷马的希腊古诗《奥德赛》（Odyssey）、英雄叙事长诗《贝奥武夫》（Beowulf）及《约瑟王之死》（Le Morte d’Arthur ），全是奶奶以耐心撒下了需要很长时间才结果的种子。
他从英国牛津留学回新后，还发现奶奶的床头有古希腊三大哲学家之一的柏拉图的《理想国》及《对话录》。这些书有经常被翻阅的痕迹，说明了书本主人阅读的密度。他多么希望自己能够有机会和奶奶分享自己最近也开始欣赏的希腊哲学家思想。
失去奶奶的心情使他想起了牛津大学语言学家托尔金（John Ronald Reuel Tolkien）奇幻巨作《魔戒》最后篇章中一句关于离别的话：“平静地离去！我不会说‘别哭泣！’不是所有的眼泪都是罪恶的。”
《魔戒》是他们一家数十年喜爱的作品。
绳武富有文学修养。他还引用了莎士比亚的十四行诗，其中几句：“爱是坚定的烽火， 凝视著狂涛而不动摇；爱是向导迷航船只的明星，高度可测，实价无量。 ……爱不随分分秒秒、日日月月改变， 爱不畏时间磨炼，直到末日尽头。”（O no! it is an ever-fixed mark. That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks. Within his bending sickle’s compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.）
他说：“爷爷和奶奶对我而言，一直以来便是这样的爱的例子。”
19世纪文学家巴特勒（Samuel Butler）这么写道：“而我不会完全被遗忘，在我所爱的人的思念与行为中，我的生命延续着。”（Yet shall I not be forgotten, but continue that life in the thoughts and deeds of those I loved.）
绳武以朗读巴特勒的著名诗句作为他悼文的结语后说：“我们爱你，奶奶，我们会记得你。”
Comments from the press and public
MANY wept, but for me, it was not a time for tears.
Was I not moved? I was. But I was moved to cherish the living, just as much as I was moved to mourn the dead. It was that sense of something warm, something human and vital underneath the sorrow, that kept my eyes dry even as my heartgrew heavy.
It has been two years since I first heard Mr Lee Kuan Yew speak about his wife. But in the two days I spent at Sri Temasek covering the wake, I came to learn something that transcended all sadness. Mrs Lee taught me about love.
It was a lesson, I think, that she taught many others besides me. Speaking to the crowds who turned up at the wake, I heard the word used again and again: People admired her because she was a loving wife, a loving mother.
Returning again and again to the room in which the coffin lay, I was struck by how her family members stood by her side, a testament to the ties that bound them together.
Love. That word appeared again in the eulogies delivered during yesterday's funeral. More than once, her family members spoke of her love for them finding form in the smallest, yet most significant things: rust-coloured sweaters, peaches, toothbrushes.
It came, too, in what was unspoken. There was the catch in Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's voice as his emotions overcame him, the tremble in Minister Mentor Lee's hand as he placed that single red rose in the coffin.
It came in that silent procession behind the gun carriage in Sri Temasek yesterday afternoon. I watched the family walk behind their loved one, making that last journey to her final rest.
And it came yet again, from the guests who were there at the funeral. Their responses kept returning to that key note: 'a grand and noble love'; 'he loved her very much, and she loved him very much'; 'they were so loving, and now they've got to be apart'.
In my own way, then, I had joined the thousands of mourners over the past two days, paying my last respects to Mrs Lee.
She was a remarkable woman in her own right. There was an aura about Mrs Lee that struck me, as it did others. That ironic wit, that ineffable poise, that love for books and music and language - all this made me want to know her more.
But I was not just paying tribute to a great and intelligent woman. I was also saying goodbye to a woman whom I had not met, but whose example of love had touched me - and others - to the quick.
I saw that love first in MM Lee's memoirs, when he wrote about their secret marriage in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Something about that shattered my cynicism about love and marriage. Something about the sheer confidence of it, the intimacy of it, floored me.
I heard it during several interviews with MM Lee last year, when he spoke of how Mrs Lee was his helper and his confidante. There was real fondness in his voice as he spoke about her, a sudden gentleness in his face.
When I heard about how, after Mrs Lee's stroke, he had adjusted his life around her, peeled her fruit for her, comforted her in the midst of her disability, I encountered that love once more: a patient tender-heartedness that remained undimmed by age or affliction.
It is easy to talk of candle-lit dinners and starry eyes. It is not quite as easy to talk about the burdens of being a prime minister's wife, about raising three children in the midst of a political maelstrom, about love in times of need.
I am all too conscious of love and its limitations. I know what it is like to wait for love, just as Mrs Lee must have done when Mr Lee first went to Cambridge. I know what it is like to love someone in the grip of a terrible illness. I know what it is like to write love letters to someone far away.
And I know what it is like to love in times of happiness, as Mr and Mrs Lee must have experienced in their student days, in their salad days, in their quieter moments of shared confidence.
What I did not know was how to bear this love with equanimity and spirit. That, Mrs Lee taught me.
It was a love that could pack suitcases and yet refer to itself, sardonically, as 'the Commissariat'. It was a love that knew it had to accommodate and make adjustments.
More importantly, it was a love that was all too human, all too easy to empathise with and understand. After all, it was a love that was not above feeling the odd bout of frustration. As she told the authors of Men In White: 'Sometimes I would much rather Harry got unseated and stayed out of politics and lived quietly on the law. What's the use of it all?' But still her love enabled her to stand by her husband, through all his trials.
As I listened to Mr Lee speak about his marriage and as I heard stories of Mrs Lee, it was as if my own love grew and matured, gained a new understanding of itself, found guidance and instruction.
And that is why I could not weep. It did not feel appropriate for me to do so, since I did not know Mrs Lee personally.
More importantly, however, I did not weep because I was suffused with love and the need to express it. To take that equanimity and spirit and start to live it with the living, to put that lesson into action.
Speaking to some of the guests after the funeral, I was struck by the number of them who said that they had felt a need to go home and reach out to their families, their wives and husbands, in newfound affection.
I was moved, too. I wanted to feel the touch of a hand in mine. That want was stronger than all sorrow.
And that, I think, is no cause for weeping.
Many touched by love between MM and Mrs Lee
HEADS down, with reddened eyes, they hurried to their cars, to return home to their husbands, wives and children.
Stopped by The Straits Times, some teared as they spoke of the funeral service for Mrs Lee Kuan Yew that they had just witnessed.
They singled out the moment whenMinister Mentor Lee bent over his wife's casket to bid her goodbye. He stretched his hand to touch her, put his fingers to his lips and placed a kiss on her forehead, twice.
Dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief, Mr Sam Tan, Parliamentary Secretary (Information, Communications and the Arts and Trade and Industry), said: 'After attending the funeral, I just want to go home, kiss my wife and tell her I love her.'
He nearly lost her 12 years ago to breast cancer.
'Seeing the strong love between MM Lee and Mrs Lee reminds me of the importance of family and my relationship with my wife, which I must treasure.'
Whether politician, head honcho or grassroots leader, the guests said that was the most poignant moment in the 90-minute funeral service.
Mr Goh Heng Soon, 61, a grassroots leader at Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's Teck Ghee ward, said it was a good reminder to him not to take his wife of 40 years for granted.
'Mr and Mrs Lee had such a grand, noble love, it's inspiring. I will think of how I can be more caring to my wife,' Mr Goh said.
Mr James Lee, 72, a director and senior adviser at property developer Wing Tai, knew the family through the late Mr Dennis Lee, MM Lee's younger brother. He, too, teared at that point.
'She was such a fine lady,' he said.
Mr Teo Ser Luck, Senior Parliamentary Secretary (Community Development, Youth and Sports and Transport), called MM and Mrs Lee his 'role models' in his own relationship with his wife, while MP Baey Yam Keng said: 'I now feel that (no matter what), the family is still the most important thing in one's life.'
Added Mr Ivan Khua, branch secretary of Teck Ghee: 'A person may be very successful in his career, but what matters most is to have a soulmate to share his daily life.'
Others were also touched by the eulogies that revealed Mrs Lee's love, in gestures big and small, for her three children and seven grandchildren.
Mr Ho Nai Chuen, the citizens' consultative committee chairman for MM Lee's Tanjong Pagar ward, said he was moved by PM Lee's recollection of how Mrs Lee cared for his two children after the death of his first wife.
'She really took over the mother's role in looking after the two grandchildren. And the way that she nurtured all the grandchildren to be upright, speak good English and learn the best way in life.'
Most circled back to the love that endured for more than half a century.
Mr Chandra S. Pillai, a grassroots leader from Teck Ghee, put it simply: 'He loved her very much, and she loved him very much.
'That kind of love we should treasure.'
'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.'
PM Lee Hsien Loong, in his eulogy
她带着国人的敬意走了
（2010-10-07）
再怎么也不想面对的离别时刻，始终要来临。
内阁资政李光耀徐徐走向夫人柯玉芝的灵柩旁，献上一朵深红色玫瑰，向爱妻两次献上飞吻后，轻抚她脸颊和额头，把握住最后的几秒钟，凝视着妻子的遗容，但他终须与一生的挚爱诀别。
就如李资政在葬礼上发表的悼词中所说的，爱妻89年的岁月过得充实美满，让他得到慰藉，但送别爱妻这一刻的心情，却是沉重而悲痛的。
他向参加葬礼的约300名亲友发表约20分钟的悼词时，没有掉过一滴眼泪，但出席葬礼的亲友都能感受到他对妻子的深情。
他很努力地控制住自己的情绪，如同平时发表演讲那样，但字里行间尽露难舍之情。
“对我们在一起的63年，我有珍贵的回忆。没有她，我会是个不同的人，过着完全不同的生活。她为我和我们的孩子奉献一生。当我需要她的时候，她总是在我身边。她度过了充满温暖和意义的一生。”
三名子女也对养育了他们五十多年的母亲万般不舍，长子李显龙总理、女儿李玮玲医生和次子李显扬也顺序为母亲发表悼词。
三兄妹道出李家许多不为人知的小点滴，诉说着这位慈母如何从小督促他们成长及对他们一生的影响。失去母亲的悲伤之情难以按捺，三人发言都几度哽咽，但都强忍住泪水。
李总理的悼词概述了母亲对三兄妹的养育之恩。
妈妈在我们一生中都伴随左右。我们一同高兴过、一同悲伤过，也一同度过了许多关键的时刻及里程碑。现在我们所有的人都得学习适应没有她的日子。但是，她的精神将永远存在，保存在她的孩子和孙子身上、保存在我们对她的珍贵记忆中，以及保存在她抚养成人的我们身上。”
李夫人这一生相夫教子，花尽心思养育子女，扮演好妻子与母亲的角色。因为有了这样的力量泉源，李资政身为我国第一任总理，才能全心全意地为国家付出。
上周六，深受国人爱戴的李夫人与世长辞。昨天，她带着全国人民的敬重，在亲属、纳丹总统及夫人、国务资政吴作栋及夫人、内阁部长及他们的夫人、医护团队、人民行动党代表和基层领袖的目送下，走完人生最后一程。
即使无法到万礼火化场观礼，许多民众也到总统府外等候李夫人的灵柩从总统府驶出。
下午三时许，当记者到总统府园地里的总理官邸斯里淡马锡采访出殡场面时，已见数十名穿着白衣黑裤的总统府及总理公署工作人员在旁等候，准备送李夫人最后一程。
为了纪念李夫人对我国所作出的非凡贡献，政府也为她的葬礼安排了象征荣耀的军用拖曳炮架（ceremonial gun carriage），运送她的灵柩前往火化场。
李资政在下午三时许抵达灵堂后，运送灵柩的仪式随即展开。拖曳炮架的吉普车上有六名穿戴军礼军装的官兵，其中四人下车后分两对站在炮架两旁，静候灵柩从灵堂抬出。
下午3时40分，灵柩由10名工作人员抬出，李资政一家缓缓紧随在后，失去至亲的沉重心情不言而喻。
运送灵柩仪式是在肃穆的氛围中默默地进行着，下午3时45分，拖曳炮架向总统府正门方向驶去。这时，总统府大门外已聚集了数百名公众，他们在炎阳下静候，目送许多人心目中的“国母”走完最后一段路程。
从总统府到万礼火化场的路线长25公里，护灵车队途经加文纳路、武吉知马路、纽顿圈、纽顿路、汤申路、汤申路上段、三巴旺路、万礼道和万礼路，于下午五时在军乐队伴奏下抵达万礼火化场，庄严朴素的葬礼就此开始。
李夫人生前平易近人，因而深得人心。昨天为她扶灵的都是曾负责护卫李资政和她的十名保镖，包括两名女保镖。
葬礼是以李夫人生前最爱的巴哈乐曲为背景，而李资政的新闻秘书杨云英也协助把李夫人生前的照片和录像制作成短片，让观礼的亲友重温李夫人的精彩一生。
李资政夫妇有六名男孙和一名女孙，李总理长女修齐和李显扬长子绳武代表孙辈在葬礼上宣读悼词。李资政和三名子女的悼词悲情流露，两个孙子则选择以自己独特的方式纪念祖母。
修齐的悼词语调轻松活泼。她要人们认识不一样的奶奶，一把新梳子、一双新球鞋就能让她快乐。在她眼中，奶奶就是这么一个容易满足的女人。
她说，2003年首度中风，没把奶奶击垮，反而让她享受作为小女人的乐趣，获得了李资政无微不至的照顾，这时的奶奶比从前更快乐。
李夫人熟读中西经典著作，绳武以莎士比亚的十四行诗，赞誉爷爷奶奶至死不渝的爱情，作为送给奶奶的最后礼物。
在六人宣读悼词后，李夫人的子孙一一上前为她献上一朵粉红色康乃馨，表示对母亲、对奶奶的爱意。李资政在曲终时，也献上深红色玫瑰，对爱妻作最后的吻别。
在灵柩送入内室准备火化的那一刹那，离别的时刻真的降临了。带着感激和敬意，国人告别这位与李资政相守相持63年的人生伴侣，也希望李资政能早日走出悲伤。
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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
