Thank You, Mr Lee

I've never met the man before all my life and the only time I got to see him was last year's National Day Parade which I got to attend for the first time through the display screen. He looked so frail and had to be helped to his seat, a far cry from back then when he stood tall and stoic when giving his speeches. It was very sad indeed but kudos to him that even with his ailing health, he came to see the Nation celebrating its 49th birthday which he had never missed.

Sadly, when the Nation is going to celebrate its 50th birthday, which is a monumental celebration after 50 years of independence, he will not be around to witness the grand celebration. He built Singapore from a swampy nation to a Metropolis that you see right now. He felt accountable to the lives of the millions of people here in Singapore and took on his leadership roll very seriously, making promises to them and keeping every single one of them.

He didn't care about our youth's opinions on him who weren't around to witness our Nation transformation and to easily make seething harsh remarks about him and his government. All he knew was that he had sacrificed his life to build this nation, changed the lives of many people and improved the living conditions. We are now enjoying the fruits of his labour. Clean and green city, a stable economy, strong education and so on.

We can grumble all we want, blame other people, be in this poor state or create a vision of a better future.

Let us not let him down as we thank him for making Singapore to be an internationally recognized world class nation.

My brother and I were one of the thousands who came and queued for hours (in our case, close to 6 hours) from 12 midnight to almost 6am in the morning to pay our last respects. My feet was badly crying for help and in the last leg of our queue, where we had to wait for yet another 1 hour or so, I took shelter in the middle empty lane along with a few others before my legs gave way. My brother still stood strong although currently, he's feeling the aches and limping from the hours of standing. 



The parliament house where we would pay our last respect.

However, this was just a small sacrifice compared to our founding father. Today, the nation bid their last farewell as he made his final journey and to see people of all ages standing and shouting his name while waving the small Singapore flags even when the rain was pouring, it was a sight, hard not to be taken in.

Rest in Peace Lee Kuan Yew.





follow me on http://instagram.com/rahayupopz

Comments

Popular Posts