December 31, 2021
© Dana Gluckstein / mptvimages.com
Christmas night was peaceful. The family had departed and I inhaled and exhaled deep breaths…eyes closed, gratitude as another year passes and my family is healthy. I remembered what is true and important – love and compassion, truth, and light. This has been a year of listening to myself. I slipped away from the world of social media which has become too much work, too much of a diversion, too much of a poke rather than a hug. Friends and family are in each breath I take, each card or email I write, each phone call I make - the thrill of hearing my daughters’ and son’s voices, rich, clear tones of our ancestors singing in my ear bring the entire universe into view.
“Life ever yearns to unfold into deeper relationship.” – Martin Lee Mueller
And then at 11:07 PM, I received a text that our beloved Most Reverend Desmond Mpilo Tutu left this earthly plane. I had known his health was failing but I did not know that Christmas Day he would take his final breath. It is fitting – a day of new birth, a day of holy promise, a day to remember the birth of a Savior.
I first met the joy-filled rabble rouser for peace and justice in 2000 when our family hosted a dinner for him and dearest mama Leah at our San Rafael home before he spoke at the Marin Civic Center Auditorium. They were on a national tour to thank Americans for supporting sanctions against South Africa, and for fighting with black South Africans to abolish apartheid. His stories that night from his work leading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission shocked us, the suffering so much greater than we could have imagined. To be in his and Leah’s presence with their joy, in spite of what they had witnessed and endured, charged me with resilience.
In October 2006 the Archbishop invited Artists for a New South Africa board members and friends to South Africa to attend a celebration for his 75th birthday. A flurry of activity ensued as twenty-five people signed on to make the journey to visit the programs and services supported by ANSA. We visited Robben Island and walked inside cement slab cells where the activist prisoners had been kept fourteen hours a day, with only a woolen mat to sit and sleep on. In Mandela’s cell, I looked out of the small window high up in the wall and experienced the silence they lived with day after day. None of us uttered a word as we imagined ourselves imprisoned in the bleak surroundings. Our journey to celebrate the Arch culminated in a meeting with the lion of freedom, Nelson Mandela, a once-in-a-lifetime experience I will never forget.
In 2008 I created my Donor Advised Fund, Do A Little, at the San Francisco Foundation to serve the needs of women and girls. Do A Little’s name was inspired by a quote from the Arch: “Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”
Do A Little supports women as leaders, and owners of our futures and encourages women to grow in whatever ways bring happiness and peace. I have followed my beloved Arch’s way of being in the world for over two decades. As he once said at a private luncheon, “South Africa would be better served through the wisdom of women leaders.”
I have a magnificent black and white photo of the Arch in my hallway, also taken by Dana Gluckstein, and every time I walk by, his eyes glimmer above his smile, sending love into my heart. He was a generous soul who created friction where it was needed to push past the boundaries of racism, injustice, and hate. He was a joyous servant of the highest God of his understanding. He was a loving, compassionate father to us all.
“God…takes sides. He is not a neutral God. He took the side of the slaves, the oppressed, the victims. He is still the same even today; He sides with the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, and the victims of injustice.” - Desmond Tutu
