Kwa Geok Choo, who had been bedridden for over two years, unable to speak or move, passed away this afternoon in her home."Mrs Lee Kuan Yew, age 89, passed away peacefully at home today at 5.40pm," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement, adding that her funeral will take place on Oct 6.
Her husband, Lee Kuan Yew, 87, the architect of modern Singapore, has been in hospital since Wednesday for a chest infection. But he was shown in good spirits on Friday, talking to International Air Transport Association President Giovanni Bisignani in his hospital room.
Lee is credited with transforming Singapore from a swampy Third World sea port into a First World financial dynamo. He was Singapore's prime minister for 31 years, until 1990.
In an unusually frank interview last month, Lee said his wife's illness was one of the hardest things for him to face.
"What to do? What else can I do?" he told the New York Times. "I can't break down. Life has got to go on. I try to busy myself, but from time to time in idle moments, my mind goes back to the happy days we were up and about together."
"She understands when I talk to her, which I do every night," he added. "She keeps awake for me; I tell her about my day's work, read her favorite poems."
"I told her, 'I would try and keep you company for as long as I can.' That's life. She understood."
But he also said: "I'm not sure who's going first, whether she or me."
Son is now PM
Both attended the same school in Singapore, Raffles College, and then attended Cambridge University to study law. They married in 1950.
Kwa founded Lee & Lee, one of Singapore's largest law firms, in 1955 with her husband and her brother-in-law Lee Kim Yew. She is listed as a consultant on the firm's website www.leenlee.com.sg.
"I wanted someone my equal, not someone who was not really grown up and needed looking after. And I was not likely to find another girl who was my equal and shared my interests," Lee wrote in the first volume of his memoirs, "The Singapore Story."
He remains deeply involved in Singapore politics, where his party has been dominant for 50 years, at home and abroad. He still holds the advisory post of "minister mentor" in the cabinet of his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
The couple's younger son, Lee Hsien Yang, ran Singapore Telecommunications, the country's biggest company, for 12 years before becoming chairman of property and beverages conglomerate Fraser & Neave.
Their daughter, Lee Wei Ling, is a director at the country's National Neuroscience Institute.
- Reuters
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