Tag: Loss

This is bizarre. I mean, this is fucking surreal.

There’s certain moments in the course of history that stop you dead in your tracks, when you just don’t know exactly how to react. Usually, it’s monumental tragedies. I can recall only one time I was stunned by something joyful – 2010 Stanley Cup Final, Patrick Kane’s game-winning goal in double overtime in Philadelphia. And that was honestly one of the last times I was sent into jaw-dropping silence. That was 10 years ago.

I wish that I was stunned into happiness instead of what I felt yesterday.

I was watching a YouTube video on my phone when my best friend called. I pick up the phone, say hello (as you do), and the conversation goes like this:

“Kobe’s dead.”

“What?”

“Kobe is dead”

**long pause**

“Kobe BRYANT?!”

“Dude, what other Kobe is there?!”

Growing up a rabid Chicago-sports partisan, I was sort of raised to look down on certain players and teams. Michael Jordan was the greatest player of all time. Anyone who acted like or maybe even claimed they were better was automatically on my parents’ shit-list. And in turn, they were on mine.

Kobe was one such player.

Of course, there were the other issues. The so-called diva personality, the purported me-first attitude, the cockiness, brashness…

And then of course the victories. All of those championships. Never ever losing. Seemingly always on SportsCenter celebrating another title.

In American sports, and perhaps this is the same across the globe, if you see someone’s face too often and they’re not on “your team”, you begin to resent the prick. See? Not “the guy,” “the dude…” It’s immediately more hostile: “prick”, “fuckhead”, “asshat”, “asshole”, “bag of diseased dicks…” OK, that last one may just be me. But nonetheless, that’s the type of visceral reaction you tend to have towards famous people you don’t like. And then heaven forbid something happens off the field/court/ice/the arena to make said person look like a genuine piece of shit, and then your contempt can turn into straight-up hatred.

Of course, that was the infamous rape story back in the early 2000’s. And yes, it was never proven 100% for sure that Kobe did such a thing.

But tell that to my 12-year-old self. And the teenager/young adult in the years following.

If I’m being completely honest, I don’t know how much I really like him even now.

But hearing other people laud and praise him, grieve his loss, remember him so fondly, coupled with distant footage of a burning helicopter and bunches of first responders wearing an eerily similar shade of yellow Bryant sported as a Laker for 20 years…

The sadness begins to consume you. The emotion overtakes you, immersing you in grief not so much for the man himself but for the people who adore him.

Maybe it’s just my empathy. I’ve always been pretty empathetic.

When tragedy strikes, I tend to drown in dread, especially with truly upsetting moments in history the likes of 9/11, the Challenger disaster, Hurricane Katrina, etc.

I hate suffering. And really, who enjoys suffering? Like watching people be wiped out of existence, or being subjected to the harshest of humanity’s darkness. Perhaps a sociopath.

In particular, I hate tragedy. I hate when bad things happen to undeserving people. Kobe Bryant was no saint, but to die right after the birth of his fourth daughter at only 41, merely beginning his post-sports life, it’s just tragic. Men like Trump can continue their miserable existences doing nothing but ruining the lives of countless millions, but a guy like Kobe can’t fly his kid to her basketball game in his helicopter without it falling out of the damn sky.

At 41.

I could look like a massive douche for writing about a guy who I honestly didn’t like all that much.

But I only truly disliked Kobe the player. I didn’t know enough about Kobe the man, the father, the mortal flesh-and-blood human being to have an actual facts-based opinion on him.

I do know that no one should have their life cut so violently short. Certainly not along with his 13-year-old daughter, leaving his wife and three other children behind while ALSO devastating two other families that we know of.

As of this writing, three of the nine total victims are yet to be identified. I pray to G-d those others weren’t Gianna Bryant’s teammates.

No matter how you look at it, this is devastating.

I only hope that in some way, any possible way, some good will come out of this. I don’t have a single idea what type of good you could get from such heartbreak, but hopefully it’s anything.

Even if it’s something as simple as for one day at least, everyone appreciates their loved ones a little bit more, hugs their kids and spouses tighter, spends time with the people that matter.

In the end, that’s what we all want.

Rest in peace, Kobe and Gianna Bryant, Christine Mauser, John, Keri, and Alyssa Altobelli, and the yet-to-be-named others lost. And condolences to their families, friends, fans, really everyone who’s been touched by this horrifying final chapter for the lives ended far too soon.