Goodbye, our founding father Mr Lee Kuan Yew

This morning, Singaporeans woke up with much sadness as our founding Prime Minister Mr Lee Kuan Yew passed on in the early morning at 3.18am. Although our dear Mr Lee had been getting frail and hospitalised since CNY period, the nation is never ready for his passing.

I scrolled through my Facebook newsfeed, most posts were regarding his passing and many people changed their profile picture to LKY related monochrome picture as a tribute. It is the first day of Term 2, we were feeling the blues about returning to a hectic Term 2, and after adding on the this feeling of sadness, it was pure mixed feelings as I went about my daily business quietly.

Just like our humble nation, I grew up from a humble background. Dad was a blue collar worker, Mum was a immigrant from Msia. I am really glad that I received good education, my family also upgraded from a 3-room, to a 4-room and finally to a 5-room flat as my two siblings and I grew up. When I spoke to Mum earlier this evening, she said that the CPF policy was the best thing the late Mr Lee had given us, it enabled us to have a roof over our heads and we even got a little more affluent. It is evident when we are even able to do better than our grandparents and our parents, each of us are now owners of condos and ECs. As I grew older and traveled around the southeast asia region, I've noted how developed our nation is compared to all our neighbours, Mr LKY had single-handedly built this first class oasis among third world region. I am truly proud to be a Singaporean, where my red passport can bring me to most countries without a visa, where we have the best airport, best airlines and many world class facilities.

This is the first time I'm experiencing a national mourning period of this scale. I am happy that many of my generation remember this great man, this man who we called our PM as we grew up. He is close to me like my parents, he watched over us as we grew up and played a very important role in shaping our life.

Thank you Mr Lee for being such a great leader. And goodbye.