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"I am of the view that if Madiba is no longer enjoying life, and is on life support systems, and is not
appreciating what is happening around him, I think the good Lord should take the decision to put
him out of his suffering," said the tribal chief, Phathekile Holomisa.
"I did speak to two of his family members, and of course, they are in a lot of pain, and wish that a
miracle might happen, that he recovers again, and he becomes his old self again," he said. "But at
the same time they are aware there is a limit what miracles you can have."
For many South Africans, Mandela's decline is a far more personal matter, echoing the protracted
and emotionally draining process of losing one of their own elderly relatives.
One nugget of wisdom about the arc of life and death came from Matthew Rusznyah, a 9-year-old
boy who stopped outside Mandela's home in the Johannesburg neighborhood of Houghton to show
his appreciation.
"We came because we care about Mandela being sick, and we wish we could put a stop to it, like
snap our fingers," he said. "But we can't. It's how life works."
His mother, Lee Rusznyah, said Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison under apartheid before
becoming South Africa's first black president in all-race elections in 1994, had made the world a
better place.
"All of us will end," Thabo Makgoba, the Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, said in an interview
with The Associated Press on Wednesday. "We just want him to be peacefully released, whatever
he's feeling at this moment, and to be reunited with his Maker at the perfect time, when God so
wills."
The archbishop said: "Ultimately, we are all mortal. At some stage or another, we all have to die, and
we have to move on, we have to be recalled by our Maker and Redeemer. We have to create that
space for Madiba, to come to terms within himself, with that journey."
On Tuesday, Makgoba visited Mandela and offered a prayer in which he wished for a "peaceful,
perfect, end" for the anti-apartheid leader, who was taken to the Pretoria hospital to be treated for
what the government said was a recurring lung infection.
In the prayer, he asked for courage to be granted to Mandela's wife, Graca Machel, and others who
love him "at this hard time of watching and waiting," and he appealed for divine help for the medical
team treating Mandela.
Visitors to the hospital on Wednesday included Mandela's former wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
The couple divorced in 1996.
"As he remains in a critical condition in hospital, we must keep him and the family in our thoughts
and prayers every minute," President Jacob Zuma said Wednesday.
Mandela, whose 95th birthday is on July 18, served a single five-year term as president and
afterward focused on charitable causes, but he withdrew from public life years ago and became
increasingly frail in recent years. He last made a public appearance in 2010 at the World Cup soccer
tournament, which was hosted by South Africa. At that time, he did not speak to the crowd and was
bundled against the cold in a stadium full of fans.
On April 29, state television broadcast footage of a visit by Zuma and other leaders of the ruling
party, the African National Congress, to Mandela's home. Zuma said at the time that Mandela was in
good shape, but the footage the first public images of Mandela in nearly a year showed him silent
and unresponsive, even when Zuma tried to hold his hand.
"Let's accept instead of crying," said Lucas Aedwaba, a security officer in Pretoria who described
Mandela as a hero. "Let's celebrate that the old man lived and left his legacy."
Dan Lehman, an American academic, chose a jogging route on Wednesday morning that passed by
the hospital where Mandela is being treated.
"I was just going out for my morning run down here and come to pay my respects to the greatest
man in the world," Lehman said. Then he began to cry.
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