Against The Grain by: Andy Sullivan

Thu, 01/30/2020 - 12:12pm — Diane Dyer

Sunday January 26, 2020 started out a pretty regular day: get up, eat breakfast, go to church, come back and eat lunch. It was normal. After lunch, I got an alert on my phone saying Kobe Bryant had been killed in a helicopter crash. My initial thought was, “What?! No way this is right”. I turned on the tv in the living room and, in a few short seconds, there was the ABC News Special Report.

I sat there watching motionless for at least 3 hours. When ABC went back to the Pro Bowl or whatever was on, I went to ESPN. That’s where most of the 3 hour binge took place. Kobe was one of those guys whose entire career played out in one part of my lifetime. That seems wild to imagine. What’s even wilder is that he was 41 years old. I’m 40. Let that marinate. That’s probably what hit me hardest of all.

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Kobe’s 13 year-old daughter Gianna and 7 other died in that crash. All bodies have been recovered from a Calabasas hillside. I don’t have a girlfriend, wife or kids. At this stage of the game I probably won’t. What I do have is family. I can’t imagine such a tragedy befalling us. You always hear “hold your loved ones a little tighter, call, text, let people know you love them. I know it sounds cliché perhaps. It’s not. Do it now and do it often. You might say “but that’s hard for me”. It’s always been hard for me too. I’m still not great at it. Believe me, you could ask some people and they’d tell you. I do try, though. That’s all we can do is try.

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High school phenom, NBA MVP, 25 points per game average, 5× NBA Champion (2000, 2001, 2002); NBA Most Valuable Player (2008); 11× NBA All-Star (1998, 2000–2009); 2× NBA Scoring Champion (2006–2007); 6× All-NBA First Team (2002–2004, 2006–2008); 2× All-NBA Second Team (2000–2001), Oscar winner, Emmy winner, AAU coach were just a few accolades in his career. “Life is short and fragile. Tell someone you love them. Call them, text them”. That was what Ellen Degeneres said in her monologue Tuesday and she’s right. #RIP Kobe Bryant

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