OXLEY ROAD SAGA
Dr Lee was known for her willingness to speak out on issues involving her own family. She was involved in a public dispute with her brothers over the fate of their family home at Oxley Road.
Dr Lee and Mr Lee Hsien Yang alleged they felt threatened in trying to fulfil their late father’s wish to demolish the house. They also accused Mr Lee Hsien Loong of abusing his influence in government to drive his personal agenda.
Mr Lee Hsien Loong denied their allegations. He had recused himself from all government matters relating to the house since April 2015, to avoid any conflict of interest.
DIAGNOSIS AND DECLINE
Dr Lee, who often expressed a stoic attitude towards life in her writings, adopted a similar tone when she announced her condition in 2020.
“My immediate reaction to the news was “忍”(ren), or endure in Chinese, of which the traditional character has a knife above a heart. I have been practicing “忍” since I was in Chinese school, recognising that life has many unpleasant, unavoidable situations,” she wrote in a Facebook post.
She also shared about how her condition affected her movements, which “are slow and hesitant” and how she had difficulty “getting up from my futon”.
Her final Facebook post was on Sep 3, 2020, where she recounted her experience getting lost in Fort Canning Park and fracturing her right femur.
Prior to her diagnosis, Dr Lee mulled over ageing and her own declining physical strength and endurance in a 2015 column in The Straits Times.
She wrote: “I have stared old age in the face and, finally, accepted the inevitability of physical decline, which will continue until I die … But I will only accept the decline as inevitable when it is obvious that, however hard I try, I cannot retain my younger physical and mental state.
“I am exceptionally determined (or stubborn), and I don’t give up easily. So, I see a long battle ahead.”
