“I do not remember experiencing great grief so much as feeling
cut adrift. Although my mother was the center of my existence,
I defined myself through my father. My father’s passing changed
my whole life in a way that I did not suspect at the time.
After a brief period of mourning, my mother informed me that I
would be leaving Qunu. I did not ask her why, or where I was going.
I packed the few things that I possessed, and early one morning
we set out on a journey westward to my new residence. I mourned
less for my father than for the world I was leaving behind.
Qunu was all that I knew, and I loved it in the unconditional way
that a child loves his first home. Before we disappeared behind
the hills, I turned and looked for what I imagined was the last
time at my village. I could see the simple huts and the people
going about their chores; the stream where I had splashed and played
with the other boys; the maize fields and green pastures where the
herds and flocks were lazily grazing. I imagined my friends out
hunting for small birds, drinking the sweet milk from the cow’s
udder, cavorting in the pond at the end of the stream.
Above all else, my eyes rested on the three simple huts where I
had enjoyed my mother’s love and protection. It was these three
huts that I associated with all my happiness, with life itself,
and I rued the fact that I had not kissed each of them before
I left. I could not imagine that the future I was walking toward
could compare in any way to the past that I was leaving behind.”
Nelson Mandela.
Excerpted from “Long Walk to Freedom”, author, Nelson Mandela.
Publishers, Little, Brown and Company,
New York, NY 10017.
Mandela was nine years of age when he left that village.
Islander.