When Nelson Mandela died at the end of last year, I was surprised at how easily and freely my tears came. I’d never even met the man, but I felt a profound sense of loss — something far greater than just grief for the end of a life. His death made me reflect not only on his life, but on mine too and on the times when our paths had crossed and how those fleeting, yet significant moments had changed the course of my journey.
When I was born, Nelson Mandela had already been incarcerated for 14 years and it would still be many years away, the day that I finally discovered who he was and what he stood for. Growing up in South Africa, it was easy for a child like me not to be aware of him— we led such sheltered lives in the safety of our white suburbs.
Despite having little idea of the political unrest my country was experiencing while I grew up, I was no stranger to conflict and turmoil. I grew up in a family where the parenting style was ‘do as I say and not as I do’, where resentments were worn like badges, where everyone was afraid and nobody really listened to each other. It was its own type of prison.
And then weeks after I arrived as a shy and awkward pre-teen at my new high school and mere months after my brother took his own life, Nelson Mandela was finally released from his 27-year jail term. I couldn’t help but be swept up in the moment. Watching his release live on a friend’s television set after school one afternoon, seeing the triumph in his raised fist and the jubilation of the people he served, there was a real glimmer of hope in the darkness of my small universe.
A new school and now the release of this acclaimed freedom fighter seemed symbolic. It was a new beginning for me. And during the five years I spent at high school while he prepared to take up his presidency, I felt like I too, was on course for great things.
Two of my most significant milestones happened within 24 hours of each other. I graduated from university in the evening of one day and the very next I boarded a plane to England on a one-way ticket. I had waited to get what the majority of South Africans covet — a good education — and then planned to put my too-often tumultuous past firmly behind me and start afresh in a brand-new setting.
This was to be a new chapter in my life and I planned to make it better than all those that had come before. It was my dream to reinvent myself in a new place and forget about my painful past. I literally dived out of the safety of everything I knew into a new world of uncertainty. It was about the most conscious plan I ever made.
There was something even more momentous about those twenty-four hours. Nelson Mandela, about to end a chapter of his own life — his first and only term in office as president of South Africa — sat in the front row as an honoured guest at my graduation ceremony, there not just as the incumbent statesman, but also the proud grandfather of another graduate. It was a fortuitous turn of events and its significance was not lost on me.
There he was again: at another turning point in my life, egging me on, reminding me to go ahead and make the most of my life, despite the obstacles that might stand in my way. The man who had fought such a long and difficult fight, with a tumultuous past himself, who had achieved his dream and changed his future, was there in the front row of my graduation, silently encouraging me and all the other proud and hopeful students by his mere presence to do the very same.
So this opportunity I was taking after graduation day was a very conscious choice to make all things possible. If I just got away from all the stuff that didn’t serve me, didn’t work, made me sad and angry … if I just started afresh, I could make my life happen the way I wanted it to. I had no idea where I was going. I had no real plans. All I had was a dream. I wanted to somehow make things better than they had been. I wanted to live my best life. I didn’t know how I was going to get there or what that life looked like; all I had was a backpack, a bed for the first week and bags of hope. I had no idea how it was all going to pan out, but I somehow knew I would be okay.
Fifteen years have passed since I took that leap of faith. And I’ve since returned to South Africa with a husband and children in tow. But while coming to terms with Mandela’s passing at the end of last year, I couldn’t help asking myself the question: had I made any inroads towards achieving my dream of a better life? And how would I know what success looked like?
I spent years abroad trying to put the past firmly behind me and create a new life for myself. In some ways my plan worked — I met the man I would marry; I had two beautiful children; I travelled and broadened my world view. But the truth is I never felt truly free. What I had done when I left South Africa had been a cop-out. I had thought that if only I could put distance between myself and the pain of the past, I would be able to be a success. But I’ve since discovered that the past is part of me and in order to have the life I dream of, I have to embrace who I am. And to do that I have to own my past.
It took many years before I was able to do this, before I could really look into that dark place and heal those wounds. Coming back to South Africa meant coming back to all the reminders of who I had been back then. All those wounds came back to the surface — redder and rawer than ever — and this time I simply had to deal with them. I had to forgive my past in order to recover. Only then could I feel free.
So do I now know what success looks like? Can I honestly say that I did it, that I achieved my dream of a better life? Well, this is what I know for sure:
We can never have the lives we dream of without forgiving the past and accepting ourselves for our place in them.
I made a go of it; I went forward with faith in the task. And looking back now, I can see the progress. And that right there, is my marker for success.
Judge me not by my successes, but by how many times I fell down and got back up again. — Nelson Mandela
Email me when Melissa Fagan publishes or recommends stories