FINALLY, on Friday December 20 2013, I made my way back to Mthatha. I wanted to go and say my last goodbye and pay my respects at Madiba’s gravesite.
I was not the only one who wasn’t allowed at the burial. Meme, the housekeeper, and Betty, one of the household assistants, had also been prevented from going to the grave, or even being in the foyer of Madiba’s house [in Qunu] when the casket arrived from Johannesburg, yet they too had been loyally serving him for years.
The hills of Qunu were back to the slow pace of life. The dome had been removed and sprinklers watered the newly planted grass. The cows and goats were roaming freely as before, unaffected by the change.
I went straight to the farm to greet Mrs [Graça] Machel. This would be the first time I had seen her since the Thursday before the burial.
I wanted to know specifics from her about his burial. Did he go in one of his favourite shirts? She said he didn’t. He went with some of his personal items, some of the few things that were so dear to him.
I asked about his walking stick. An ivory stick he got from Douw Steyn made from the tusks of a bull elephant that had died on Douw’s farm Shambala, where Douw had built a house for Madiba to use to write the sequel of Long Walk to Freedom. Sadly but not surprisingly I was told the stick had not been found.
I took time with Mum talking about the stick, tracking its journey to the house in Qunu and then to Houghton where we last saw it. Neither of us had the energy or the emotional strength to start looking for the stick and I put her mind to rest that the stick will eventually one day surface.
Or someone will read this and discover it perhaps. It is clearly marked “To Madiba, from Douw Steyn” and one of its kind. Madiba should have left with it.
Driving back after 10pm from Qunu to Mthatha, the most beautiful moon rose over the hills of Mthatha. The brightest orange moon I had ever seen. It dawned upon me that here this white Afrikaner girl was driving from Qunu to Mthatha all by herself. Madiba would have insisted that security accompany me, being concerned for my safety.
Thinking about that made me smile. But I kept my eye on the moon and realised that he had removed all fear from me. I had finally grown up. Almost 20 years ago I wouldn’t have dreamt of driving this road by myself at night. But the Transkei, as it was formerly known, gets under your skin. The place becomes part of you.
I was fearful of so much 20 years ago – of life, of black people, of this black man and the future of South Africa – and now I was no longer persuaded or influenced by mainstream thinking or fears. I was my own person. Madiba had given me peace and freedom too. He had freed me from the shackles of my own fears. He not only liberated the black man but the white man too.
I felt light, free and thankful that my teacher was Nelson Mandela. As much as I grieved for him, I had gained so much and I spoke to him in the car on my way back to Mthatha, keeping my eye on the bright moon.
We ended up going to the grave on Sunday morning. We were scheduled to leave around midday.
Shortly after 8am Mum, Josina (Machel’s daughter), Meme, Betty and a few other workers, security and I drove up to the burial site.
We had ordered fresh flowers the previous day and we started cleaning the graves of Madiba and his three children. We were quiet and the mood was solemn. The tombstones all had the family crest on them, that which had become familiar to me through its appearance on the House of Mandela wines.
We removed the old flowers, bunches of white flowers that had been laid on his coffin and placed around the tombstone, orchids and roses. Now damaged by the sun.
We replaced the flowers with fresh ones, after which Mum called us together and she asked Meme to pray. Meme said a beautiful prayer and I was shuddering as we were holding hands during it.
Meme prayed in Sotho as well, during which my thoughts went off to Afrikaans prayers and my mind wandered, trying to send a message to Madiba. I thanked him again and told him like so many other times how much I appreciated him but that, most importantly, he should remember that I love him.
Shortly after noon it was wheels up from the Mthatha airport. It was the longest 55-minute flight from Mthatha to Johannesburg of our lives. It was all over. Final.
The next chapter would be harder. I knew a battle was brewing over the will and Madiba’s estate and control over his legacy. It was like they say, a sign of the times. I knew that it was also time for me to start moving away. My duty was done.
The last days and months reminded me of the story of Tolstoy. Ironically there were a lot of similarities to the life of that great Russian writer whose work Madiba also loved so much. How crowds gathered before his death, but also the contest for control over his legacy and his estate.
I was seated closest to the door in the small aircraft. It was much better than a commercial plane but we all felt somehow exposed, naked, as there was nowhere to hide our emotions. I could feel Mum’s pain as I watched her breaking down in tears when our plane slowly made its way through the thick clouds.
And eventually we all just broke down, crying in our seats. Me, Mum, Josina, Celina – Mrs Machel’s sister-in-law – Betty and Cordier the bodyguard. No one spoke during the flight. Mum is normally so stoic, so strong. But breaking through the clouds, flying away from him, leaving him alone we all shared a sense of abandoning him, deserting him.
The only thing we never wanted him to feel and the one thing I promised him I would never do.
But what do we do now? He is home and heroes never die. He will be present in those beautiful hills for ever and I now know he will be even more powerful in death than he was in life.
His prolonged illness had forced me to grow up. It taught me some of the most valuable lessons of life and showed me what not to expect of people.
I don’t know what I will do for the rest of my life. Maybe I will find another job and perhaps I will find a man to spend time with, one who knows and will respect that a piece of my heart has already been taken . . . given to an old black man who was once my people’s enemy and is now lying, like an ancient king, deep in the soil of South Africa’s golden hills of Qunu.
We will see him in every sunset and every sunrise. We must keep looking for him. He will look after us if we remember his lessons.
And slowly we climbed above the clouds, reaching the sunshine and the warm light of the African sun shining through the windows of the plane, eventually heating up our faces and drying away the tears.
Tot weersiens Khulu! Until we meet again.
Zelda la Grange was Nelson Mandela’s personal assistant for 19 years. Good Morning, Mr Mandela is published by Penguin (2014)
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