Postscript Summary and Analysis

In the postscript, Tutu notes that TRC workers and commissioners are encouraged by mental health staff to have a support system and to take vacations. He also encourages them to deal with their feelings in order to stay disciplined and focused and not to disintegrate. Nonetheless, many are still personally shattered, particularly interpreters that have to put the atrocities into their own words.

Tutu finds out that he has prostate cancer in 1997 and thereby feels the cost of his work. His cancer helps him become more laid back and to acquire a new appreciation and intensity for life. It also helps him to identify with all the sinners in the world as a wounded healer.