The happy child

Oscar Pistorius as a child - Source The Daily Maverick

If I've learned anything about the media and our insatiable fascination with celebrity (particularly the fallen type) - I suspect the Oscar Pistorius affair is set to dominate the headlines for some time to come.

I suspect it will bore some of us before long too - (O.J. Simpson anyone?)

There was however one piece in The Daily Maverick by freelancer Alita Steenkamp (no relation to the tragically deceased Reeva) which got me thinking.  It was prefaced by the endearing photo of a beaming toddler wearing a bib, home-knitted jumper, blue shorts and prosthetic legs.  It was none other than our nation's erstwhile hero, the Blade Runner himself.  

The photo broke my heart.  I wanted to reach into the screen, pluck the lad out and place him on a path other than the one he would ultimately choose - even if it meant a life lived in obscurity.

It reminded me of a piece I read by a British Rabbi named Lionel Blue who, on his 52nd Birthday sat and contemplated a photo of himself as a young boy and then wrote a letter to that child.  

I include it here not to comment on the sub judice issues of the Pistorius affair but perhaps to invite you into a similar form of introspection.  None of us are immune from catastrophe - but we can manage at least some of the probabilities through the choices we make.

Here are some excerpts from Blue's letter:

Dear Child

I don’t know how we are related, if we are, for not one cell of your body lives in mine.  I know you tried to imagine me once or twice as you gazed into the future, but you wouldn’t recognize me now.  I don’t know if I’ve ever been your friend or foe, for there was a lot of niceness in you I never allowed to grow, but I didn’t have much choice!

It is of course your birthday too, and I remember the presents you longed for – a cup cake at the Corner House, meeting a millionaire who would give dad a job. 

But I cannot reach through the glass that separates us and can give you nothing.

I can’t even pass on some knowledge that would make your life easier.  That sort of knowledge, as you’ll learn later, always comes too late, after events not before them.

But as I look at you, your image gazes into me and I see myself without the rucksack of anger and reproaches I’ve got used to carrying on my back.  I wonder what it would be like to let it go, I know from your face that it wasn’t always there.  Perhaps I can, because as I get older I am closer to being a child again, a second time round, and I become free from grown-up hopes and fears.  

Or as Soren Kierkegaard said

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards"