Desmond Tutu was an icon. A spiritual compass. A champion of the anti-apartheid struggle. But those who saw the Nobel Peace Prize winner up close basked in his rollercoaster laughter and came away infused with the joy and warmth of the man.
We were among the few white people in the congregation and, as we shook hands with Tutu on the steps upon leaving, he made a joke. Something like: “So, it really is a white Christmas.”
To see Tutu up close was to bask in his rollercoaster laughter, to revel as his eyes would widen theatrically, to luxuriate in his pristinely enunciated remarks, and to come away infused with the man’s joy and warmth. If he had a chance to dance, usually in church, he was on his feet — with the help of a cane in later years, as he grew more frail.
Not everyone was a fan. His moral ardor ran up against realpolitik. His notion of the ″rainbow nation,″ an idealized vision of racial tolerance, is at odds with the social and economic imbalances of South Africa today. In time, I became a journalist and also worked for the AP in South Africa, sometimes covering Tutu’s post-apartheid commentary on corruption and other challenges, as well as his hospitalizations for the prostate cancer that afflicted him for nearly a quarter century.
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