Kobe
Just got a call from my slightly older sister Erica (a.k.a. ‘Riki’) to give me a heads-up on a tragedy I was reading about at the very moment I picked up the phone: the incomprehensible death of Laker great Kobe Bryant. What a horrible, horrible tragedy. Such unbridled sadness and pain. Unless you’re an Angelino you cannot truly comprehend what we’re going through. While the rest of the world refers to Los Angeles as “La La Land,” we, who are proud natives, people who know our hometown as El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora Reina de Los Angeles, are a single, multi-ethnic family. If your Spanish is a bit rusty (or nonexistent) it translates as “The town of our lady, queen of the angels.” We are simply Angelinos, meaning “angels.” And, as Angels, we have just lost one of our greatest celestial heroes: Kobe Bryant. A mere 41-years old, Kobe was not only a titan of the round ball; he was, is, and always shall be a superstar. As Angelinos, we feel a special. emotional kinship with the angels who have added so much to our city . . . even those who were neither born nor raised in our midst.
A Philadelphian by birth, Kobe and his family moved to Rieti, Italy, where his father, retired NBA player Joe “Jellybean” Bryant had gone to play for an Italian team. During his years in Rieti, Kobe became fluent in Italian; he eventually became fluent in Spanish as well. Returning to Philadelphia, Kobe was an eighteen-year-old high school phenom when first signed by the Lakers in 1996. He would go on to become one of the greatest basketball players of all-time; an 18-time NBA all-star who won 5 NBA championships, became a two-time scoring champion, as well as an Academy Award-winner (for a documentary short film Dear Basketball ) and a philanthropist of note. And while he did have his dark, nasty moments, became embroiled in a sex scandal and was fined $100,000 by the NBA for making homophobic slurs, was able to pick himself up, dust himself off, grow up, and make a triumphant return to the winner’s circle. His sudden death in a fiery helicopter crash has taken the breath away from people across the country and around the world . . . but likely nowhere harder or worse than in our beloved City of the Angels. For here - in Los Angeles - Kobe was far, far more than a mere basketball immortal; he was our son, our brother our neighbor. His helicopter went down in Calabasas (Spanish for “pumpkins”) in the extreme western end of the San Fernando Valley, site of the Motion Picture Country Home and a 20-minute walk from my mother’s and sister’s residences. He was a neighbor; a 41-year old father of 4 daughters; a retiree devoted to making the world a better place through the giving away of his vast fortune. He was just beginning his life’s second act . . .
Where a majority of readers and followers of this blog can identify Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Mitch McConnell and Steve Scalise, most people cannot. However, a far, far higher number of folks across this country and around the world can give you line and verse about Kobe Bryant. In fact, he is, was always shall be one of those rare individuals - some famous, others infamous - who went through life being known by a single name . . . people like “Shaq,” “Cher,” “Sting,” “Marilyn,” “Rembrandt,” “Casanova” and “Mussolini.” Kobe now becomes part of that celestial gathering of talented people who shed this mortal coil far, far too early: Rudolph Valentino, George Gershwin, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison; Lou Gehrig, Thurman Munson, Roberto Clemente, and Len Bias; Sylvia Plath, Arthur Rimbeau and the Brontë sisters, Anne and Emily; RFK, JFK and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
One of the eeriest and perhaps most hopeful aspects of Kobe and Gianna (Gigi) Bryant’s horrible deaths is how quickly the nation’s emotional “channels” have been changed . . . from anger, intolerance, viciousness and disunity to mournful togetherness. For the first time in ages, we as a nation are pretty much sharing the same teary-eyed feeling. Most of us are now mourners; most of us are Angelinos. Oh sure, there are those hiding behind the barrier of Internet anonymity, reminding everyone that Kobe was far from a saint and rehashing his shortcomings and mortal errors. I would imagine that some of them hold even greater sinners than Kobe Bryant in far higher esteem. Whatever happened to not speaking ill of the dead? But for now, at least, a vast majority can for the first time in a long time, share a deeply human emotion: ineffable loss. May this brief unity - forged through shock and sadness though it may be - act as a reminder that life is short, and that we should try getting along with one another.
In the words of John Lennon, another whose life ended far too soon:
Life is very short
And there's no time
For fussing and fighting, my friend
I have always thought
That it's a crime
So I will ask
You once
Again
Try to see it my way
Only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong
While you see it your way
There's a chance that we may fall apart before too long
We can work it out
We can work it out.
Farewell Kobe.
Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone