Zoleka Mandela opens up about grief of losing Mama Winnie

Mama Winnie Madikizela-Mandela‘s granddaughter, Zoleka Mandela, returned to social media after the family ending a month of mourning. The cancer activist took to social media to share her heartbreaking grief over the loss of Mama Winnie.

Image: Zoleka Mandela IG

Our hearts go out to Zoleka and the family during this time.

I have the memories of the last few days constantly streaming through my mind. You’ve said more to me in your visits, their dreams but I wish you had said something to me on Friday when we attended your last Good Friday service together, do you remember how pensive you were during the church service and how I kept checking if you were okay, you were’t sleeping through the entire service as you had started doing? You were always so tired and in pain. I wish I spent the night again when you asked me to that Saturday because you would have woken me up in the early hours of the morning when you felt the tightness in your chest. Ma, I only left because you always want us to talk until the early hours of the morning when we have our sleepovers in your bed and I needed you to rest because you had started feeling sick. I wish you had said something to me when we were alone in your bedroom on Sunday, those moments when I helped you get ready for hospital or when I packed your bag just before we left? I held your hand the entire time we drove to hospital, all you did each time I squeezed your hand was look up and smile but no words. I don’t know if you knew that I was waiting outside for you the entire time, you would have hated the thought of me sitting on some chair outside your ward and crying my eyes out and not on the blue lazy boy right next to your hospital bed like I always did? Why did you wait until I left the hospital to go home and change, for you to take your last dying breath without me? Is it because I always fell apart when you got sick or when you were in pain that I never gave you the chance to be weak so I could be strong for you for a change? I’m sorry, Ma. I’m falling apart at just the thought that you must have felt so alone at that time if you did, I’m crying because you didn’t have to keep your dying a secret from any of us. If you needed me to be stronger for you to tell me that you only had a few more days, I know I wasn’t and I’m truly sorry. I have so much guilt. Please know that when these words I write you and those I say to you are not enough because you don’t always respond to me, I want and have always wanted to be everything for you.

A post shared by Zoleka Mandela (@zolekamandela) on Aug 5, 2018 at 4:05am PDT

SEE ALSO: SA mourns Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

Saturday, 4th August 2018 marks the end of our mourning as a family … I don’t even know what that means exactly, how can anyone say how long you get over grief? I don’t think I ever will. I always knew that this loss would completely destroy me, I feel like I don’t even recognize myself anymore. Nothing will ever be the same without the one I loved more than I loved myself. I’m tired of being told that time heals, what you would have wanted for me, that you’re in a better place and tired of everyone around me pretending to have been the closest person to you. It only hurts more. Where were they when you were suffering in silence and pretending to be okay, when you actually needed their company and not another request from them to take more pictures with you that they are now posting on social media to advance their own interests? I envy them at times, I doubt they question their entire existence as I now do since your passing. How can love be so painful? Most of the time, I don’t even think I can go another day without you. I know I can’t bring myself to pray but with each day that passes, I wish I struggle less with why you left without saying goodbye and with staying up all night so scared and angry about having to live the rest of my life not knowing why you chose not to tell any of us that you were dying. I love and miss you more than life itself, more than everything in this world alone …

A post shared by Zoleka Mandela (@zolekamandela) on Aug 4, 2018 at 2:41pm PDT