Last years with my granddad Madiba
In his memoir, Ndaba Mandela recalls the last few years of hislegendary grandfather Madiba
TO THE rest of the world Nelson Mandela was a hero, but growing up in his home his grandson got to see a side of him that was all too human. It’s hard to imagine the pressures Madiba must have faced coming out of prison and taking on the task of leading South Africa to democracy – but while all of this was happening he saw that his rebellious teenage grandson desperately needed his help.
Ndaba Mandela (now 35) – who heads Africa Rising, a foundation aimed at empowering young people – says if it wasn’t for his grandfather’s intervention he wouldn’t be where he is today.
In this moving extract from his new memoir, Going to the Mountain, he talks about the life-changing time he spent with Madiba.
ONE of the last- known photographs of my grandfather Nelson Mandela was taken at his home in Johannesburg on a Saturday morning in 2013, just a few weeks before he died. In that photo, my three-year-old son, Lewanika, sits on the arm of the Old Man’s easy chair, looking with great interest at his Baba. My grandfather smiles a crooked smile, holding Lewanika’s small hand, the same way he held mine the first time I met him at Victor Verster Prison in 1990 when I was seven years old.
But on this Saturday the Old Man was quieter than usual as he spent time in the company of his great-grandson.
He was 95 and had been fighting a lingering upper respiratory infection, but the strength of his spirit was still evident in the way he held himself and Lewanika.
My grandfather loved children. To the end of his days, if you put the Old Man in a room with a baby or a little kid, you might as well not exist. He had eyes only for those little ones.
When I was a kid and it was just my granddad and me at the long dining room table, he said to me more than once, “All those years in jail, I never heard the sound of children. That is the thing I missed most.”
When I was a kid I often felt overlooked by adults but it wasn’t in Madiba’s character to ignore any child, no matter how poor, scruffy or seemingly insignificant. He spoke with great longing and regret about being absent while his own children and grandchildren were growing up.
He’d been in prison all of my life and most of the life of my father, Makgatho Lewanika Mandela, the Old Man’s second son by his first wife, Evelyn Ntoko Mase.
His intention, I think, was to make up for that a little by taking me in and becoming, in all functional aspects, a father to me [Ndaba’s dad and mother, Zondi, were both struggling with alcoholism and Madiba wanted to look after the boy while they found their feet].
As with most good intentions, there
were downsides he didn’t anticipate, but somehow my granddad and I crossed the valleys that separated us.
Madiba’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren brought out a deep sense of hope in him, but also a deep sense of responsibility and a fresh respect for ancient tradition. He looked at us and saw both past and future: his ancestors standing alongside his descendants.
I never fully understood that until Lewanika came along, followed by his little sister, Neema, but I think I started to understand as the Old Man passed from his eighties into his nineties, and the roles we played in each other’s lives began to reverse.
My granddad was my protector and caregiver when I was a child; now I was his.
DURING his final years, he didn’t want a lot of strangers fussing over him. He wanted my elder brother, Mandla [Makgatho’s eldest son from his marriage to his first wife, Rose], and me to carry him up the stairs and preferred to have his wife, Graça, help him with personal needs.
If he was leaving the house, he wanted me to arrange security. If he was sitting up in bed, he wanted me to bring him the most relevant newspapers. I was that guy.
Even as he approached his mid-nineties, he never lost his zest for life, but he was pretty frail those last few years, and that frustrated him. He occasionally got quite combative, yelling at the nurses and caregivers. He even punched one male nurse in the face, much to everyone’s shock and dismay.
It was like the old boxer inside him had suddenly had enough of all this nonsense and – bam! – he let loose a surprisingly strong left uppercut before anyone realised what was happening.
“Get out of here!” he bellowed at the poor bloke. “My grandson will take care of you if you don’t get out of our house! Ndaba! Fetch that stick!”
I always tried to get in there and calm him down, but sometimes there was no soothing him. That big, deep voice could still rattle the roof. It was startling for those who didn’t spend a lot of time with him, and for me it was a terrible reminder that the Old Man was seriously getting old.
I didn’t allow myself to think about where that was leading.
How strange to find that, at the end of this great man’s life, taking into account all that he gave and taught me, the greatest privileges were in the smallest moments.
His hand on my head when I was lonely or afraid. His sombre eyes as he lectured me across the dinner table. His rolling laughter and theatrical way of telling stories – and he did love telling stories!
My grandfather understood a man’s power to change his own story and the power of that story to change the world.
When I was a child, my story – my small world – was defined by two things: poverty and apartheid. When I was 11 years old, I went to live with my grandfather, who helped me reclaim a different vision of the world and my place in it.
My early chi l d hood was sometimes terrifying. My teenage years were complicated. I struggled in school. I partied hard to drown out the noise of the crowd and the painful absence of my parents.
Sometimes I found my granddad’s high standards and stiff rules hard to live with – probably because I was such an unruly little s**t in my early teens.
Madiba brought the structure and boundaries that were missing from my early childhood.
Every once in a while, when he was tasking me about studying harder or grilling me for mouthing off, I’d start to say something stupid and immediately realise that I wouldn’t change my circumstances for anything. I was ridiculously fortunate, and I knew it.
When I look back on those years, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude.
AFTER Madiba married Graça Machel we moved to a bigger house in Houghton which had more room to accommodate not only Mandla and me but also my younger brothers, Mbuso and Andile. Sometimes when school was on holiday, we’d all decamp to the presidential residence in Pretoria.
But whether we were in Pretoria or at home in Houghton, Graça insisted that we all have lunch and dinner together at the table.
These family suppers were nothing like the silent meals Madiba and I shared at the long dining room table when I was in primary school.
Conversation was irreverent and full of laughter. We kidded each other and even teased the Old Man when he was in the mood for it.
Some of the choices I made with my life broke my grandfather’s heart, and some of the choices he made broke mine. But over the years, always, always, there was a bond of good faith between us.
He saw a good man in me and refused to let up until I saw that man in the mirror.
I saw a great man in him and worked hard to be more like him.