Zoleka Mandela recalls last days with Ma Winnie
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's granddaughter Zoleka is opening up about her death four months after her passing. "I'm crying because you didn't have to keep your dying a secret from any of us," she says.
Zoleka Mandela marked the end of her family's mourning for Winnie Mandela with a heartbreaking post about her final days with her grandmother.
Ma Winnie died in April after a long illness. News of the 81-year-old's death left many in shock, as just a few days before her passing she was pictured attending a Good Friday service with Zoleka.
Zoleka took to Instagram this past weekend to speak about the struggle stalwart's death for the first time.
"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," she wrote.
ALSO READ: Final farewell for Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
The two-time breast cancer survivor says nothing will ever be the same without Winnie, adding that she now questions her entire existence.
Zoleka revealed that Ma Winnie did not tell anyone she was dying.
"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."
Zoleka added in a separate post that she has the memories of her last few days with Winnie "constantly streaming" through her mind.
She recalled how she asked Ma Winnie during the Good Friday service if she was feeling okay.
"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 weren't sleeping through the entire service as you had started doing? You were always so tired and in pain."
Zoleka accompanied Winnie to the hospital the Sunday before she died.
"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?" she wrote.
Read the rest of her heartbreaking message in the post below.