A Singapore love story: how wife's death left a tragic void in Lee Kuan Yew's life
Lee held his wife in such high regard he said he would have been a 'different man' without her
"Without her, I would be a different man, with a different life", the late founding prime minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew said in his eulogy for his wife Kwa Geok Choo at her funeral in 2010. It was a testament to the couple's 63-year-long love story.
The two had been fierce rivals in school, at least on Lee's part as he found out that she had beaten him to be the top student in English and economics at the end of the first term when they were both studying at Raffles College.
In 1946, after the Japanese occupation of the Singapore, Lee left to study in Britain. A year later, Kwa, who won a scholarship, also joined him in Britain and read law.
The two married privately in 1947 while both were undergraduates in Cambridge. Three years later, they returned to Singapore and held a formal wedding witnessed by parents and friends.
In 1952, Kwa gave birth to their first son, Lee Hsien Loong, who in 2004 became Singapore's third and incumbent prime minister. Three years later, together with Lee's brother, they set up their own law firm Lee & Lee.
It was at that time when Lee formed the People's Action Party and launched his political career.
Throughout the years, Kwa was always Lee's unofficial speech checker, helping him tighten his text. And, as one of the best lawyers in Singapore, Kwa also helped to draft clauses in the Separation Agreement when Singapore was kicked out of Malaysia, after an ill-fated merger that lasted 22 months. Behind the scenes, Kwa took care of their children while also running the law firm.
Throughout the years their relationship was not without challenges, but the two were always able to sort them out, Lee said.
"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," Lee wrote advising his younger son about marriage in 1981.
"The great tragedy of Lee's life was that his beloved wife was felled by a stroke that left her a prisoner in her body, unable to communicate or receive communication … He had faith that she understood despite the evidence to the contrary," said former US envoy Henry Kissinger.
