Ho Yuen Hoe - Death

Death

On 11 January 2006, Venerable Ho died peacefully in her sleep at the Man Fut Tong Nursing Home, at about 9:30 pm, just one month before turning 98. Until being hospitalised in November 2005, she had cooked for and looked after herself and played an active role in running both the temple and the nursing home. During her hospital stay, she suffered a stroke, which affected her speech and paralysed the left side of her body. Discharged in December 2005, she was recuperating well at the nursing home until she developed a chest infection and breathing difficulties a few days before she died.

After her death, President S R Nathan sent a wreath of roses, chrysanthemums and orchids. Several government ministers attended her wake, including Senior Minister of State for Health Balaji Sadasivan, Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports Yu-Foo Yee Shoon, Minister of State for Education and Trade and Industry Chan Soo Sen, and Northwest Community Development Council mayor Teo Ho Pin. Temple officials said she left instructions for S$100,000 to be distributed equally to 10 charities. She had purchased a simple coffin 10 years before her death, and she had also set aside S$10,000 to pay for her funeral.

On 22 January 2006, 20 chartered buses took more than 1,000 mourners – devotees, her godchildren, scores of wheelchair-bound residents, representatives from various Buddhist temples, and well-wishers – to Tse Tho Aum Buddhist Temple in Sin Ming Drive for the final prayers and cremation. The abbess' ashes were kept for 100 days at her temple, before making their way to her final resting place in Zhejiang province in China, where her niece lives. As a follow-up to her funeral, her remains and personal items were put on one-day public display at her temple on 26 February 2006. The relics (Sariras) displayed were crystalline or pearl-like deposits found in Venerable Ho's ashes. Buddhists believe these are usually found in cremated Buddhist masters, are holy, and treat them with reverence.

Since Venerable Ho's death, her work at the temple and nursing home has been administered by Reverend Seck Cheng Charn and Reverend Tang Wai Sum respectively.