In memoriam

Yes, slowpoke is slow. It's been a week now, but I wanted to do this because it kind of boomerangs back to me every now and then (also, I couldn't think of a verse that would suffice - I would have wanted to give something of myself, but it was not to be, and after a week of dallying I decided that a better verse by someone else would suffice).

I'm sure everyone's read someone's article on this already, so I will not sum up the life of Nelson Mandela here, and thusly I will try to be succinct. Mandela was, in my opinion, a truly great man - a person who genuinely believed in what he stood for, and stood for it to the end. Mandela was a force of peace, a lesson in forgiving and humility to all of mankind. To each is their time, and his was now. My only wish is that I could have met him in person. And for Nelson Mandela, if anyone ever, this verse of John Donne is most appropriate. You will be sorely missed.
 

 

No man is an island,  entire of itself; 

every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, 

as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were;  

any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, 

and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; 

it tolls for thee.