Dear Mr. Mandela,

I am so sorry that it has taken me this long to write.  I’ve intended to write you for ages and I am sorry that it took a glimpse of your mortality to remind me that I must seize this moment and not put it off any longer.

Mr. Mandela, when I read your book six years ago, I could not put it down.  I was completely mesmerized by your story and your heart.  I would read your words on the bus to and from work, frustrated by the lack of privacy that public transportation offered; trying unsuccessfully to hide my tears as they fell freely onto the pages.  I was moved by the mere fact that you existed – a man so wholeheartedly and single-mindedly devoted to a cause that it would enable him to lead an entire revolution from behind bars.  You, who were not free in the natural, had the ability to set others free because you knew where freedom existed in the first place.  And you held to this ideal even though it was rejected for years, and is still often rejected today.

“As a leader, one must sometimes take actions that are unpopular, or whose results will not be known for years to come.  There are victories whose glory lies only in the fact that they are known to those who win them.  This is particularly true of prison, where one must find consolation in being true to one’s ideals, even if no one else knows of it.  Even in prison, I was assured that I would survive, for any man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose because I will not part with it at any price or under any pressure.”

You humbly acknowledged that your strength did not come solely from some secret place within yourself, but that it poured forth from the strength of the collective identity that you had with your fellow man.  You wrote:

“It would be very hard, if not impossible, for one man alone to resist.  I do not know that I could have done it had I been alone.  But the authorities’ greatest mistake was keeping us together, for together our determination was reinforced.  We supported each other and gained strength from each other.  Whatever we knew, whatever we learned, we shared, and by sharing we multiplied whatever courage we had individually.”

Mr. Mandela, the profundity of your legacy is staggering.  It leaves me speechless, breathless, hungry, full of wonder and hope.  In order to lead a revolution of freedom, re-designing human thought, you had to know the life of a prisoner and the mind of the enemy who put you in chains.  Your entire platform of change was built on not only your vision, but your solidarity with those whom you were trying to set free.

“Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.”

Mr. Mandela, I’m so sorry that you are sick and that your tired body is finally giving out.  I’m sorry that I can’t sit by your bedside and sing you songs to usher you in to the other side, where you will finally shed this skin and be clothed in radiance.  And even now, I am weeping while writing this.  My heart is broken that I will never get to look into your warrior eyes and hug you and whisper words of gratitude.  But, I am confident that you are passing over peacefully and without fear.  You lived well.  You wasted yourself for the sake of others.  You achieved true vengeance over your enemies by bringing the fullness of life to those who were oppressed.  You sacrificed being a father to your own children in order to be a father to an entire nation.  I am honored to have lived on this earth while you walked and laughed and bled and wept.  Someday, I will visit Robben Island and touch the walls of your cell and cry and remember everything you did for our people and the price you paid to do it well.

May you go in peace,

Emily R. George