Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela is 94 and half years old, his birthday is 18 July 1918. My father saw him, and heard him, before he was imprisoned and said he was compelling, charismatic, unforgettable. My mother died in May last year and spoke of him. And now he is ‘going home’. The news says he is ‘responding positively’ to treatment, but he is dying, or in the words of Jacob Zuma, he is ‘going home’. I remember the last week with my mother – it was a ‘going home’, back to her parents, her childhood, and my father.  But not ‘going back’, rather ‘going on’, going home’. How can we feel sad? But we do.