Processing The Loss Of Kobe Bryant

Kobe Bryant was the last person I expected to die on Sunday, January 26, 2020.

I remember waking up from a short afternoon nap because my son chose to play violently with his toys instead of snuggling with me. (Typical.)

I walk into the common area, and my dad asked, “Did you hear about Kobe Bryant?”

Me: “No, what happened?”

Dad: “His helicopter crashed.”

Me: “Oh, was he injured?”

Dad: “He died.”

Pause.

Clearly, that was not the answer I was expecting. For some reason, I didn’t initially expect the worst. I simply thought it was a minor crash, or that he was critically injured, at most. It didn’t cross my mind that he would die on impact.

I joined my dad and watched the wall-to-wall coverage on cable news. I kept refreshing Twitter (and I avoid Twitter like the plague). My mother-in-law called me about 1 hour in and I still couldn’t talk much because I was in such disbelief.

I found it weird how much his death affected me. I don’t even follow basketball. I stopped watching the NBA after the Rockets won their championships in the late ’90s. I never cared for the Lakers.

I vaguely remembered Kobe retiring, and the first thing I wondered was whether he was inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame yet. I read that he wasn’t supposed to be inducted until 2021. I felt immediate regret that he didn’t live long enough to have that experience.

I didn’t follow his post-retirement career, let alone his social media accounts. I didn’t know his wife’s name was Vanessa, and that he had four daughters, one of them a newborn. I saw how he stayed active during retirement by investing in various brands and coaching his daughter’s basketball team.

Then I heard them talk about what he was doing in the days leading up to his death. His last tweet about LeBron breaking his record crushed me. In a world where leaders love to tear down their competitors, Kobe’s last tweet proved to be wholesome. He celebrated a rival who broke HIS record.

This made me ask myself: if I die tomorrow, would I be proud of my last tweet, Facebook, or Instagram post?

I learned that he was on his way to his daughter Gianna’s basketball game. She was in the helicopter with him. I saw the subsequent footage of him and Gianna, in deep conversation court side at a Lakers game. I saw the photo of him carrying Gianna when she was young, celebrating one of his championship wins on the court.

That glimpse of what he was like as a father, and realizing his second act was cut short unexpectedly really heightened my sadness.

Then, there’s the assault. Again, I am vague on the details, but I was reminded on Twitter that he was once accused of sexual assault. In light of the #MeToo movement, how can I be sad about this loss of life, pay respect to a man who accomplished so much and had good intentions during retirement, without glossing over the fact that not everything he did was right?

Five days later, I’m still reflecting on this tragedy. Besides all the platitudes, here’s what I’m choosing to take away from his death:

• Be mindful on social media. Death is a good reminder that your social media feeds will live forever. While I can’t always be happy or funny, I can choose to be purposeful in whatever I post.
  
• Emergency preparedness. I made it a point this year to start properly storing and backing up my important tax, medical, and insurance documents. This helps me rest easy, knowing anything can be found quickly in a disaster. Guess I’m on the right track.
  
• Don’t dwell on stupid shit. This is related to my theme of being unapologetic in 2020. There’s nothing wrong with obsessing about an annoyance, but 85% of the time it’s petty (at least in my case, it is). Stop wasting time. Just learn from it and move on.

Parting thought: Kobe’s death was the one thing that made the world stop talking about Donald Trump, the climate crisis, and the coronavirus for one day. It was almost as if he had to be sacrificed for humanity to pause for a moment and agree on something. A tragedy in itself.