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Through My Eyes

Through My Eyes

Author: Kasia Yoko
Date: 2013-12-13
Today we mourn, and celebrate the life of Madiba.

I'm still sad, in fact I think I will take the whole mourning thing to the next levelwith Madiba's final passing I believe some of us will be forever altered, for me 5 December will always be one of the saddest days in memory.

On one hand I am really happy that they have finally allowed Tata to rest in peace. Many nights I thought about how sad it must be for someone with his sprite and vigour to be relying on others to do the basic things for him.

Life must have been grim for Tata in those final yearsseeing his family going off coursehis daughters in New York, doing the Kardashians bit in 'reality TV' style, must have rubbed him up the wrong way, it sure did not do the family name any justice.

Don't you sometimes wonder what would have happened to this country if it were not for Madiba? Where would we all be today if our saviour did not appear like he did?

Transformation is what Madiba brought into our hearts. With effortless precision he has shown us the power of human transformation and made us all believers. 

Madiba has had a far from perfect life, but there is one thing he did, which really was perfect, and that was the act of forgiveness. Above all, Madiba's single most exceptional decision as "Father of the Nation" was not so much to run for elections, give grandiose speeches, or implement sensible public policy, but rather, to forgive. 

His most exceptional act was precisely to restrain from acting. Mandela's decision to bury the hard feelings of the past and to extend the hand of forgiveness to the people who kept him behind bars for twenty-seven years is highly commendable and something we should try to emulate. 

It is near impossible to find such magnanimous acts in the dog-eat-dog realm of politics, and it should be an inspiration for all of us to take a moment to look into our own little lives, the petty grudges we might hold against one another, and simply let go. 

One fundamental lesson that I got from Madiba, is that forgiveness is the most liberating force on this planet. It took Madiba twenty seven years behind bars to realize that, so let us not allow those 27 years to have been in vain, and let us all honour the memory of the man by replicating what he did best in our own small, private lives. 

We are all our very own prisoners in our own private jails. We all have the keys to unlock the shackles of grudge and embrace forgiveness: it's just a matter of having the courage to use them.

While we are getting ready for the biggest funeral the world has ever seen lets unite and reflect on the legacy of this giant - Madiba - and lets continue to grow and prosper as a nation so that we can stand proud and be counted as the nation of survivors and victors!

"If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness." By Nelson Mandela