While she was only allowed news that had been reviewed by her jailers, her supporters often brought her bouquets from the garden she'd dedicated to them, wrapped in newspaper.
Most of the items were provided by members of Mandela's family to raise funds for a planned museum and garden around his grave while the key is being sold by Mandela's former jailer who became his friend.
Having puffed a few cigarettes to steel himself—for he was always a man of poise, despite his tormented past—he approached him affably and guided him by the shoulder to his paintings hanging there.
There was such tranquility about him that his jailers—who were mean, mean, maybe the meanest people of the day—they couldn't understand, and they said, " Why aren't you preparing for death? "
One night, the gaoler decided to play a joke on his colleague to find out if, after so many performances, he had managed to learn the contents of the letter by heart.