(July 18, 1918 – December 5, 2013)
Mr. Nelson Mandela.
President Nelson Mandela.
Madiba.
Tata.
Madiba. Tata.
God prepared you to lead us.
Like He prepared Moses with a privileged and learned upbringing.
Like He prepared Joseph by building his character in captivity.
Madiba. Tata.
God send you to Johannesburg.
With a self proclaimed “proud rebelliousness” and “stubborn sense of fairness”.
To feel the injustice, to feel the pain, and to start on the journey.
Madiba. Tata.
God allowed you to be imprisoned.
To reflect and to learn. To prepare and to study.
To be freed, so that others, both black and white, could be set free.
Madiba. Tata.
God send you to lead us.
You showed us: Strength and Resilience and Patience and Forgiveness.
You taught us about: Compassion and Courage and Peaceful Reconciliation.
Madiba. Tata.
God send you to lead us.
You said: “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”
You said that: “The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
Madiba. Tata.
God send you to lead us.
You told us: “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived.”
You proclaimed: “It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.”
Madiba. Tata.
God took you from us.
Don’t go too far. We still need you here. We need your spirit among us.
An ancestor now, intercede for us; both black and white!
Madiba. Tata.
God welcomes you now.
As you join Gandhi and King, intercede for us.
Apartheid is over, but we have yet to overcome.
Roxanne Valies
(On the passing of Nelson Mandela in 2013)
