Passing of Nelson Mandela's Granddaughter

She was a granddaughter of Nelson Mandela, whose existence had been intertwined with struggle against substance abuse, self-harm, confrontation with cancer, and torment of watching her twin babies perish while she stumbled through the dark until she reclaimed She was 43.

The announcement of her demise came through a statement by the Mandela family on Tuesday even though she passed away on Monday. Breast cancer she battled with for years was in the state of remission. But she was eventually given the verdict, and the cancer was cancer of the liver and lung, which has been metastasis, and the entire body has reached, her relatives told.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation, in line with promoting the memory of the former South African President who passed on in 2013, is saddened about the loss of Zoleka Mandela , and extended their condolences to her family. It referred to her as a “beloved granddaughter” to Nelson Mandela and lauded her advocacy for cancer awareness and her status as an idol to young people afflicted by the disease and to those grieving their loss of children.

She launched a foundation for each sphere of society.

As far as his life was concerned, in the first years of Nelson Mandela’s life, he had been through more pain and suffering than most folks can bear. Despite the fact of her own confession and failed attempt at trying to live up to her grandfather's footsteps of being a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, the founder of the anti apartheid movement, the First black president of South Africa and what was felt to be for many, a global

She overcame sexual abuse in her youth and struggled with drug and alcohol addiction by the time she was a teenager. In 2010, her thirteen-year-old child, Zenani, died in a road traffic accident while returning from a carnival celebrating the start of the soccer World Cup in South Africa.

It happened because of a drunk driver and arrived at a time when Zoleka was at rock bottom with her own substance abuse issues and sitting in the psych ward after overdosing.

“I had gone ten days without seeing (my daughter) before she passed and I had chosen to be a drug user,” Mandela told The Associated Press during his last public speech two years ago. “That’s a constant reminder that I chose substance abuse over my children and I will be living with it the rest of my days.

It sent horror and guilt through her, pushing her to get into rehab in an effort to save not only Zwelami, but also the memory of her child, Zenani, she explained. Zenani’s passing saw an almost delicate, aged Mandela go to a congregation for his incredible granddaughter to be laid to rest and was one of his most memorable open shows.

Mandela was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after her child died; she underwent a double mastectomy and aggressive chemo. In 2011, she gave birth to her second son who was born two months early whilst she was undergoing cancer treatment and he passed away only a couple of days after his birth. When she passed away, she left behind 4 living children.

In 2013, she published an autobiographical memoir called When Hope Whispers that discussed some of “the unbearable moments” of her life. She also blamed growing up strange for some of what had happened to her. In a memoir published last year, the author related those harsh truths about being a “free Mandela” during some of the darkest moments of apartheid rule in South Africa in the 1980s while her grandfather languished behind bars.

Mandela was smuggled out to a maximum security prison on an island near Cape Town when she was just a year old so her grandpa could see her, he said in her book. She carried a hand grenade around with her when she went to school to prevent the apartheid government from arresting her grandmother, who was an elderly member of the African National Congress (ANC).

The opening line of her autobiography set the stage for her early childhood: "My mom had been taught to disassemble and reassemble an AK-47 in less than 38 seconds before I was born”. She wrote.

At 9, she had started drinking; later, was snorting a line of coke every day — the beginning of an addiction which eventually, decades later, took her further and further away from her own children, led her to feel she was a negligent mother at

However, her story eventually ended in an unexpected way when her life did change. She became an activist, campaigning not just for breast cancer awareness but against drunk driving (winning high praise), and raising awareness about the disease even as she struggled with its late-stage ravages.

She became “a tireless activist,” according to the Nelson Mandela Foundation in honor of her grandfather (possibly the greatest accolade she could have received), because despite how daunting as his legacy was, she found inspiration from him. “Most of all,” she told me, “I just wanted him to agree”.

I want him to look down and say ‘She’s doing it’” — words spoken to the BBC four years ago.