Before I left for my work trip (which explains my radio silence in the last few days), the story of a feud between Dr Lee Wei Ling and her brother, our current prime minister, broke. Dr Lee was upset about the commemoration activities held islandwide for their father, our founding father, Mr Lee Kuan Yew. I touched on her reasons in my post “The giant and his daughter”. She felt that her brother was dishonoring their father by allowing, even encouraging, those activities in his capacity as prime minister.

I am convinced both Dr Lee and PM Lee love their father deeply. That love is palpable from the tears in his eyes and the quiver in his voice when he announced his death to the nation. It is evident in her words as she wrote about coming to terms with his absence in her column, and in her deeds as she sought to protect his legacy, fiercely. How is it then that they found themselves in a conflict over their father? Love is complex, isn’t it? They love him, but they love him differently. They want to honour him, but in opposing ways.

Dr Lee loves their father purely as a child. She takes his wishes literally and they become her overriding objective. His wishes were not to be hero-worshipped, and for his marital home to be demolished, not turned into a cheesy place of attraction. She’ll take anyone to task for not respecting those wishes, including her own brother.

PM Lee loves their father also as a political mentor and predecessor. He does not want the nation to forget the many contributions Mr Lee made. Understandably, he wants to keep his political flame alive. There’s also the nation’s wishes he has to respect and facilitate in his role as PM. And those wishes – to preserve his marital home and to express our gratitude on his first anniversary – run counter to Mr Lee’s personal ones, as perceived by Dr Lee.

Thus, the conflict arose, and there are no easy answers, as is often the case with Love. It reminds me of my own relationship with Mum and Dad.

Dad and I are like yin and yang. Our relationship is very easy. We see each other frequently and travel together at least once a year. I want Mum and Dad to see the world and experience what life has to offer – the world that I am able to see and life I am able to lead, on the back of their sacrifices for me and Bro. Sadly, Mum doesn’t like traveling so has never come with us apart from the trip we took as a family when I graduated from Oxford. It’s always just Dad, and we always have a good time. Loving Dad is simple.

Mum and I are like yang and yang. I take after her, you see. We are both strong willed and somehow always managed to say the harshest things to each other in the heat of the moment. We had some of the most violent clashes I’ve ever had with anyone. We have found a modus vivendi over the years, which unfortunately involves very little daily interaction, apart from the big meals we have together around someone’s birthday, Mother’s Day, and Chinese New Year. Which I deeply regret. The irony is Mum knows me better than anyone else. And I know her pretty well too. Because we are just so similar. I have no doubt she loves me, as I love her. She was my supporter in a couple of critical decisions I took, against Dad’s preferences, because she understood. And for which I’m grateful. How is it possible then that we haven’t been able to find a way to parlay that mutual understanding into a warmer and closer relationship? How is it that we’ve both struggled to express the love we know we have for each other? It has confounded me… There’s still time of course, though it is running out, and I hope I will find some answers in the not too distant future, as will the Lee family.

 

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