Live and Die on this Day

I am sitting here thinking about the Oscar Pistorius saga and I realise that so much has been said about him, but everybody already knows who Oscar is.

Who can forget the legendary fight he had with authorities just to be granted the right to compete with athletes with no disabilities? Who would forget his sweeping victories at the London Olympics? We all know him and we've all witness his glory.

However, there's an expression that goes a little something like this: "Give people roses while they can still smell them", and this speaks to the person that was Reeva Steenkamp. Many people that I have spoken to have admitted that they never knew Reeva until the day of her killing. Because In did not know her myself, I could almost understand why so many people and media outlets spoke of Oscar in many of their pronouncements.

I raised this question of why so much attention had been given to Oscar, as though he were the only person affected by the death of this lady, to a group of students I was photographing, many respondent interestingly. Some said it's because Oscar is a well-known person, and others said one could not talk or write about that case without putting Oscar right at the centre. But I said to them we already know Oscar's role in the case and we know who he is, so why are we not talking about the lady that Reeva?

I feel, having spoken to those who have said they did not know who Reeva was, that even I did not know her. I did not even know she was on the Tropika Island of Treasure game show (partly because I don't have a DSTV compact). We then learn of how passionate she was of community-building projects and how much of her time she had dedicated to community work. It is truly sad that many did not have a chance to know her before she was killed.

History blesses us with many examples of people whose work touched many, yet they were never known to the public only until their death. What good does it serve the world if we only celebrate people and their work when they die?

Doménikos Theotokópoulos, better known as El Greco due to his Greek background, was a painter, architect, and sculptor during the Spanish Renaissance who was born in 1541. He also studied the Classics and created his own library of 130 books. He moved to Rome in 1570 and opened a workshop in hopes of allowing his artistic career to flourish and lived within the artistic community. He eventually moved to Venice and began painting religious subjects, often focusing on elongated features and figures. He did this in hopes of leaving his own mark in history, using a new and original style for himself. El Greco continued to travel and create, but soon lost his place in society after lacking the king’s favor. In 1614 he died after falling ill.

Read more: http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-people-who-became-famous-after-death.php#ixzz2MC6OodKP

Galileo Galilei was born on February 15, 1564 was a scientist, mathematician, and astronomer who contributed valuable information and astrological tools to the scientific world. He created a telescope that allowed him to look at the planets, including Jupiter and Saturn, in which he was able to discover the moons orbiting these planets. Though he didn’t discover the theory himself, he proved that Copernicus was correct in his heliocentric theory of our solar system. He was also one of the first to discover sunspots, moon craters, and even lunar mountains. While his discoveries and theories were correct, he was often criticized by those heavily involved in religion, which was a way of life during his time, as they believed that the world was geocentric and was in one fixated place and did not move to revolve around the sun. He was accused of heresy by Pope Urban VIII and was put on house arrest until his death.

Read more: http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-people-who-became-famous-after-death.php#ixzz2MC6YoI2i

Emily Dickinson’s poetry is some of the best written by a female in the English language. She has become widely acknowledged as an innovative, pre-modernist poet. Born on December 10, 1830, Dickinson lived the life of a recluse, due to the fact that she was extremely shy and introverted. She was seen as eccentric in her Massachusetts town, which made her even more isolated from the town commoners. Many believe a love affair she had sparked some sort of psychotic episode, which then focused her writing style on being highly personal and related to her own life events. During the 1880s, many of Dickinson’s family members began to die one after the other, and she soon after died as well in 1886 from Bright’s disease.

Read more: http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-people-who-became-famous-after-death.php#ixzz2MC6k1uFU

The moral here is that although many of us would like to be remembered for a thousand thousand years to come, it is imperative that we celebrated and recognised people while they yet walk the earth. Reeva might be taken from the grasp of this realm but her name and her work will forever live. And as for Oscar, I hope he regains his strength, proves his innocence on what he's charged on, pays his dues and returns to the track where we all enjoyed him.

Give people their roses while they can still smell them!