Hamba kakuhle Madiba.

And so the news breaks. At 8.50pm South African time, our icon, Africa's greatest son, Nelson Mandela died.
It seems surreal. It's like hearing a family member has passed on. The tears are falling onto my cheeks as I think about this man and what he meant to so many, me included.
I don't deny that there was a time, that I questioned the way he fought - as a teenager, confronted with propaganda, you question if violence is the right way. But then I was young, I was white and most definitely privileged in a country, where so many had so little. But in those 23 years since he was released, I have read so much of this man, I have heard him speak and there is no doubt in my mind: that he was a great man. A great man, it can't be said enough.
A man that, had he chosen, could have led our country into untold violence but chose to don a rugby shirt and promote getting along - okay, that's simplistic of me. BUT I have no qualms in saying, that my son would not have seen the country he did in August, had Mr Mandela not chosen his path of reconciliation.

When people ask me where I was when he was released from prison, I can say I was in Cape Town on that day 11 February 1990. However, I had a very different day to the majority of people who congregated in the city centre to hear him speak. But my day, was the mark of realising a little bit about how 'his' people (we all became his people, all shapes and colours but then, then it was different) held him in such regard.

I was allowed to go to the beach for a few hours. I sat there with my friends, but sulking. Sulking not because my hero, my icon was about to be free. But miserable because I knew this would be a great day in the annuls of History and instead of saying I WAS THERE, I would have to say 'I was on the beach'. Petulant as only a 15 year old could be. There was quite a crowd of us white kids on the beach, it wasn't a very popular beach (only accessed by a train line) but even the popular beaches were empty.

And this old black man came onto the beach, stumbling a bit. Homeless clearly. Asking for money for food. One of the guys we were with said 'Hey brother, what you doing here?' (in truth, it was probably the first man of colour we had seen all day) This man was startled, obviously thinking he had stumbled onto some aggro. He was just asking for some cents for food he says. 'No man' my friend said 'you should be in Cape Town, Mandela is being released today'.

I will never forget, even if I am riddled with dementia in years to come, that man's face. How it lit up, how his smile stretched from ear to ear, how his eyes crinkled with happiness and how they sparkled with tears of joy. How he leapt into the air, whooping and crying. All his food worries and homeless worries, dissipated for just a little bit. And then he stopped. He came back to Earth. Was it true? Yes we assured him.  It was clear where he wanted to be, where he NEEDED to be. But he had no money.

We gave him pretty much all the cash we had collectively. Enough for food, train fare and off he trotted. Turning around and thanking us every couple of steps.

Is that the day I became an African? Is that the day Madiba's legacy began? For me, yes it did. I had been waking up to my country for a while before, but that moment in my life, just opened me up to how things SHOULD be. I was never lucky enough to meet Nelson Mandela, but I met a man on a beach, on a day my country started it's Long walk to Freedom.

"There are men and women chosen to bring happiness into the hearts of people - those are the real heroes." Nelson Mandela 
"On my last day I want to know that those who remain behind will say "The man who lies here has done his duty for his country and his people" Nelson Mandela (1999 Qunu)

He said those things above.He was and did those things above.

RIP