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"The greatest glory of living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time you fall," Mandela once said

By Charlayne Hunter-Gault
CNN Johannesburg Bureau Chief

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) -- It was a day that will go down in South African history, when longtime colleagues and bitter enemies spoke with one voice.

They came to praise Nelson Mandela on the occasion of his last formal speech to the Parliament he helped create in 1994 -- the first all-race Parliament in the country's history. One of the first to speak was Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the leader of the party that created apartheid.

"You had the ability to be everybody's president," he told Mandela. "One of the freedoms we enjoy in our country, and that we must cherish, is that we can be free to recognize greatness in somebody that may sometimes have a different political outlook. You understood the intricate makeup of our nation and its rich diversity. You understood the need to heal the wounds of the past."

Normally in this cavernous old House, in which the ruling, predominantly black African National Congress is seated on one side and the mostly white opposition sits on the other, and where catcalls and boisterous objections are frequent, the ANC side of the aisle rose and gave van Schalkwyk an unprecedented standing ovation.

Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years as a political prisoner on Robben Island

Later, Thabo Mbeki, the man expected to succeed Mandela as president, also paid a moving tribute to a solemn Mandela.

"The accident of your birth should have condemned you to a village. ... But you have been where you should not have been. You have faced death and said, 'Do your worst!' You have had to bear the mantle of sainthood when all you sought was pride in the knowledge that you were a good foot soldier for justice and freedom."

These were all unique tributes to a man who has earned a distinct place in the history not only of South Africa but of the world.

They flowed from his insistence of reconciliation over retribution, and his efforts to live the words of the ANC's seminal 44-year-old document, the Freedom Charter, which states, "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white."

Born into a country that would be governed by white supremacists, the young lawyer spearheaded an international campaign of armed resistance

They flowed from his efforts to live his own words, uttered from the apartheid court dock before he was sentenced to life in prison: "I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination."

They flowed from the "Mandela legacy" that transcends partisan politics.

Almost without exception, Mandela is credited with the South African "miracle" -- a peaceful transition of power that avoided civil war -- as well as guiding South Africa's fragile democracy through its first five years.

Even Gen. Constand Viljoen, whose party is at odds with the ANC government over the Afrikaners' unfulfilled desire for a separate state, praised Mandela, even ending his Parliament speech with an attempt at speaking in Mandela's native Khosa. Translated, he said: "Go rest in peace. Go rest in the shadow of a tree at your home."

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That is exactly what Mandela tells people he's going to do: sit under the shade of a tree in Qunu, the tiny rural village where Mandela spent his younger years. "There, in what a local reporter described as a "beehive-shaped hut with mud walls," Mandela lived and passed an idyllic childhood, "gathering wild honey, swimming in clear, cold streams, drinking milk from the udder, downing birds with a slingshot and stick-fighting with other boys."

Little has changed in Qunu, although the village has acquired a new school thanks to Mandela's appeal for funds from a petroleum company. Mandela's half-brother is living better than before, in a new brick home paid for by the president.

Mandela's own retirement home in Qunu is a new, expansive, red brick structure with a floor plan that matches that of the farmhouse where Mandela was imprisoned before his release. He used the same plan, he wrote in his autobiography, "Long Walk to Freedom," "because I was familiar with its dimensions, so at Qunu I would not have to wander at night looking for the kitchen."

Mandela's 47 head of cattle graze behind his new home. Cornfields surround a family graveyard. His friends in Qunu are eagerly awaiting his return, as one said, "to give him a pat on the back." But Mandela also is building a home next door to South Africa, in Maputo, Mozambique, where he expects to spend time with the family of his new wife, Graca Machel, the widow of the late Mozambican President Samora Machel. In 1996, Mandela divorced his wife of more than three decades, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, amid allegations that she was involved with another man.

Mandela and his wife, Graca Machel

Though few would quarrel with Mandela's desire to rest as he approaches his 81st birthday in July -- having been a prisoner for 27 years and a president for five -- his energy level is that of a man half his age. Clearly, from his near-Herculean performance in the final days of his presidency on trips to Russia and China and on the campaign trail across South Africa, it is Mandela himself who doesn't seem ready to go sit under a tree in Qunu.

In his final days as president, he often joked that he was going to stand on a street corner with a sign that said, "Unemployed, no job. New wife and large family to support."

Mandela has two daughters (his son died while Mandela was in prison), four step-children and several grandchildren. Like his wife, herself an internationally respected children's advocate, Mandela has been almost singularly devoted to children -- his own, his wife's and millions of others.

South Africans celebrate Mandela's inauguration in 1994
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During his presidency, he set up and raised millions for the Mandela Children's Fund, a charity for disadvantaged children. Few escaped what is known as the "Madiba Touch," "Madiba" being a clan title for Mandela denoting respect.

Friends and associates say that Mandela is "shameless" in his appeals for money from all and sundry, including visiting rock stars and potentates seeking to curry favor with the world's preeminent elder statesman.

In recent days he has said he would decide what he's going to do with his life after the expected inauguration of Mbeki, in whom he has said he has the utmost confidence. He says he may spend the first three years of his retirement writing about his term as president.

But he has also said he will be available to serve the ANC in any capacity it deems necessary. Mbeki also has touted Mandela as someone with the stature to help mediate simmering conflicts on the continent before they explode. On that last day in Parliament, wearing a dark gray suit, white shirt and gray tie, Mandela walked slowly to the podium a few feet from his seat.

Mandela appeared on the cover of TIME magazine May 9, 1994

Composed and solemn, he praised his colleagues, saying that they had laid the foundation for a better life. And then he said: "And for me personally, I belong to the generation of leaders for whom the achievement of democracy was the defining challenge; I hope that decades from now, when history is written, the role of that generation will be appreciated, and that I will not be found wanting against the measure of their fortitude and vision."

And then he looked to the future: "I will count myself as amongst the aged of our society; as one of the rural population; as one concerned for the children and youth of our country; and as a citizen of the world, committed, as long as I have the strength, to work for a better life for all people everywhere. The long walk continues."