Sisulu collapsed and died at her Johannesburg home June 2 at the age of 92.
Mandela's message, read by his wife Graca Machel during Saturday's funeral at a Soweto soccer stadium, set off a brief rally of singing and dancing in his honor that interrupted an occasion that was both mournful and celebratory. Mandela's poignant message listed several friends and colleagues he has lost in recent years. He said he felt Sisulu's loss especially deeply.
"I would have loved to be here today to pay my personal respects but it would be too painful for me to see you go," said Mandela, who at 92 rarely makes public appearances. The Mandela family on Saturday was marking the first anniversary of the death of Mandela's 13-year-old great-granddaughter Zenani, killed in a car crash on the way home from a soccer World Cup evening concert in Soweto.
Saturday's service followed a week of national mourning during which flags were flown at half staff across South Africa and at its foreign missions. Officials of the governing African National Congress fanned out to every province to lead a series of memorial services. President Jacob Zuma, who delivered the eulogy, declared an official funeral with military honors
- as close as possible to a state funeral reserved for presidents.
Crowds of mourners arrived early, filling about a quarter of the 40,000-seat stadium.
Khesani Chauke, a 30-year-old Soweto resident, sat her four-year-old daughter, Navelelo in her lap, and said it was important for the child to be part of this moment in South African history.
"Even if she doesn't remember, I will tell her she was here," Chauke said.
Maureen Matlala, 39, boarded a bus the night before with neighbors from eastern South Africa to get to Soweto. Despite the all-night drive, she walked into the stadium crisp in the green, black and gold uniform of the ANC Women's League, an organization Sisulu once led.
Matlala said she had grown up hearing stories of the 1956 march on Pretoria that Sisulu helped organize. The march
- under the slogan "you strike a woman, you strike a rock" - united thousands of women of all races against the extension to women of pass laws that restricted the movement of black South Africans.
"She's one of those woman who made us who we are today," Matlala said.
Sisulu's husband, former ANC secretary general Walter Sisulu, was given a similar funeral after his death in 2003. Their love endured 26 years of separation while he was imprisoned for his anti-apartheid activities. Albertina Sisulu is to be buried next to her husband before a sweeping stone wall with a black marble plaque bearing his name at a cemetery on the edge of Soweto.
The couple's eldest son said at the funeral the two would never again be separated.
"The wonderful love story of Mama and Tata (father) comes full circle," Max Sisulu said.
Walter Sisulu spent most of his time in prison on Robben Island alongside Mandela, whom he had brought into the ANC. Mandela spoke at Walter Sisulu's funeral eight years ago.
While her husband was in prison, Albertina Sisulu raised the couple's five children and several nieces and nephews alone, and was a mother figure to many other young South Africans, some of them relatives, some not.
