I am quite uneasy about writing a remembrance of someone who’s still with us.

But when Nelson Mandela’s daughter describes her father as being “at peace,” I translate that to mean the end is near.

A sad day for the world lies just ahead.

The former South African president and one-time political prisoner ranks at the top of the 20th century’s greatest figures. He withstood 27 years of prison, locked up by a government that accused him of treason merely for demanding equal rights for the country’s black population; I won’t call them “citizens” because until apartheid fell in 1990, they didn’t enjoy the rights of citizenship.

Mandela walked out of prison in 1990 free, proud and remarkably lacking in outward bitterness. Why be bitter? he asked rhetorically. To harbor anger and hatred toward his captors would be to deny the victory he had just won, Mandela said.

He went on to become the country’s first black president in 1994 and became arguably the world’s most overpowering presence.

Apartheid – the doctrine of separate and unequal societies in South Africa – became the bane of that country’s existence and Mandela became its most famous foe.

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At the risk of sounding like a name-dropper, I’m going to tell of a brief moment I enjoyed being in Mandela’s presence. We didn’t speak. We didn’t shake hands. He didn’t even know I was in the same room with him.

It occurred in 2004 at the International Conference on AIDS, which took place in Bangkok, Thailand. Mandela was there to take up the cause for research into tuberculosis and other communicable diseases; Mandela contracted TB while in prison. I was in Bangkok as part of a delegation of editorial writers and editors on a three-nation tour examining the impact of AIDS in Asia. Our journey also would take us to Cambodia and India.

Conference organizers scheduled a brief public appearance by the great man in a meeting room. He would enter the room, speak for a few moments and then would leave. There would be no questions. What’s more, we were told, there should be no flashbulbs, as Mandela’s eyes were extremely sensitive to the light, given all the years he lived in total darkness while in prison. Of course, the nimrods in the room didn’t hear the no-flashbulb warning.

He entered the room. I stood in a crowd of other journalists about 40 feet away from him. I’ve had trouble over the years trying to describe the what it’s like to see someone who embodies such strength and character in the flesh. Words really do fail me. Suffice to say that Nelson Mandela, who isn’t a physically imposing man, simply took command of the entire room. I suspect he could have walked into a packed football stadium and had precisely the same impact on that crowd as he did on the gaggle of reporters packed into the meeting space.

Mandela spoke for about 10 minutes. Then he left. I stood there utterly mesmerized by what I had just witnessed. I cannot remember if others in the room felt the same way, as my mind was too busy trying to take it all in.

This great man was frail then. He needed assistance walking to and from the podium. His power, though, transcended any physical infirmity.

I am thinking that power will live well past Nelson Mandela’s time on Earth.