Remembering Nelson Mandela: When a Great Tree Falls…

When giants die their deaths impact the world; touches the largest and smallest of us; challenges us to never forget their amazing lives, or the important lessons they left behind.

Nelson “Madiba” Mandela was such a giant who, in spite of his role – from his years as a young anti-apartheid activist, to his ascension to the presidency of South Africa – counted himself a servant of the people. I join the Universe in grieving this great man’s passing as I remember the moment I stared greatness in the face.

It was another amazing leader, America’s 42nd President William Jefferson Clinton, who, during his historic African Tour, not only afforded my husband and me the opportunity to meet the prisoner-turned world leader, but personally introduced us to Madiba. We were just two in the President’s extensive traveling staff during his exhausting trek through 11 African countries, and endless meetings with the continent’s leaders. In spite of the enormous weights these two men carried on their shoulders; they also shared a most uncanny ability – of making us feel as if we were the two most important people within that moment.

The memorable introduction took place in Johannesburg, at the Presidential Dinner hosted by the South African President inside an elegantly designed and decorated tent. The occasion, the food, the South African wine, the widely diverse attendees are all etched in my memory as if it happened yesterday. The evening and the meeting was beyond any lifetime dream this world-class dreamer could have indulged in down in southeast Arkansas. This man with the over-sized presence, aura, and humanity offered me the kindest of smiles as if this sharecropper’s daughter was someone he knew well.

It was Mr. Nelson Mandela, but also the full breadth of those 10 days of discovering Africa, I would carry away with me. So many of the centuries-old myths remembered from childhood were remembered, then quickly debunked. It was the people…ah, the amazing people; the men and women and children who came in droves to see and hear the American President they sensed understood their woes, their troubles, their hopes and dreams. It was the marrying of the myths and the realities; the sharing of these two amazing men’s visions of a world that worked for all people – across continents, cultures, and politics.

But, even that historical visit, that once-in a lifetime experience does not compare to Madiba’s visit to the American White House later that year as the South African President shared his thoughts and his feelings about the younger President Clinton that he now called “Friend.” I was there as a fly on the wall, chronicling the Clinton presidency as Mandela spoke to white house staff, legislators, congressmen and other VIPs. No one was sure what his speech would entail. There were no written notes. As it turned out, he talked of forgiveness, humanity, hopefulness in spite of darkness. There was no sound, no voice except Nelson Mandela advising America…to assuage the pain within the American presidency, America’s tattered democracy; to allow a President to be the best President he could possibly be… and, to leave him and his God to attend his heart and humanity.

Madiba, we will miss you. A great tree falls but his life, his roots will never die.