Death
Wee died due to prostate cancer in his home on 2 May 2005 at 5:10am SST. He was 89. Before his death, he had asked to be cremated and for the ashes to be placed at Mandai Columbarium with those of ordinary citizens instead of Kranji War Cemetery, where late dignitaries are usually buried. His state funeral saw a large crowd who attended to pay their last respects at the Istana.
Wee was survived by his wife of 69 years, Koh Sok Hiong, son Bill Wee Hock Kee, six daughters, thirteen grandchildren, and fourteen great-grandchildren.
Read more about this topic: Wee Kim Wee
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“We achieve active mastery over illness and death by delegating all responsibility for their management to physicians, and by exiling the sick and the dying to hospitals. But hospitals serve the convenience of staff not patients: we cannot be properly ill in a hospital, nor die in one decently; we can do so only among those who love and value us. The result is the institutionalized dehumanization of the ill, characteristic of our age.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“I asked myself, Is it going to prevent me from getting out of here? Is there a risk of death attached to it? Is it permanently disabling? Is it permanently disfiguring? Lastly, is it excruciating? If it doesnt fit one of those five categories, then it isnt important.”
—Rhonda Cornum, United States Army Major. As quoted in Newsweek magazine, Perspectives page (July 13, 1992)
“Our love is old, our lives are old,
And death shall come amain:
Should it come today, what man may say
We shall not live again?”
—Langdon Smith (18581908)