What is a Tragedy? To me it is something that happens that ends in darkness for all parties involved. What’s worse than a Tragedy though is a senseless tragedy. One that can’t be blamed on anyone. The Tragedy of January 26th 2019 was senseless. It had no reason for happening, a cruel twist of fate, and that makes it all the more tragic
January 26th at age 41 NBA star Kobe Bryant died with his young daughter GiGi and seven others in a helicopter crash. That is the most tragic story in sports. The story of an all-time great being taken from a community that loved him more than can or ever will be expressed. The story of three young girls losing their father and sister. Of a wife widowed. Tragedy all around.
Kobe Bryant was more than an NBA super star though. He was a cultural icon. Every time you threw something into a garbage can growing up or shot a contested jumper instead of passing on the basketball court the common war cry would be, KOBE! This was a man who had ingrained his name into the mundane of everyday office life, of swishing wastepaper into recycling bins. That is really all you need to know about Kobe’s legacy.
He made everyone feel something. My 70 year old god mother who I very rarely if ever hear talk about sports texted me yesterday. “Kobe Bryant, unreal (crying emoji)” read the text. That is how you know you have made a legacy. When you move someone who never watched the sport you played to tears when you move on from this life.
So now what? How does society grieve? What happens when we lose great American figures how do we reconcile those first few months. Because eventually, the tributes will fade. Eventually the 24 second violations to start basketball games will stop. The shock and awe of the tragedy will fade away. It happens to everything. Look at the way we respond to mass tragedies in this country. We forget about them. No one wants to hear that but we do.
What do we do now though? This is the most shocking and saddening celebrity death of my lifetime. There have been presidents that have died that have not gotten the kind of outpouring of grief Kobe has gotten. It is kind of a wild sight to see. The fact social media is around doesn’t help. Twitter only amplifies the grief we have. It gives us an outlet sure but it also allows us to intake the sadness of the masses. That isn’t healthy. That isn’t how grief is supposed to work. You’re supposed to work things through on your own and lean on the people nearest to you. What if that doesn’t work for this generation of people though? If we all grieve publicly eventually it becomes self-serving grief. Oh look how sad I am today. I am much sadder than you.
What makes this even harder to swallow is that it is a senseless sports tragedy. I used to think the most tragic story in sports was Aaron Hernandez. Until of course Sunday January 26 th. Aaron Hernandez’s life was a tragedy. From a young age beaten by his father, growing up in rough neighborhoods, working his way to the NFL. Then while in the NFL getting mixed up in gang activity and tragically ending two people’s lives. Then locked away he ended his own life in his cell leaving only tragedy behind for his daughter and the mother of his child. Everything he touched ended in tragedy. The Tragedy created by Hernandez was no fault but his own though. This tragedy cannot be explained. This tragedy leaves us with no one to blame. This is a senseless tragedy. One no human deserves to have befallen them. It makes it doubly hard for the American public to swallow.
The Twittersphere simply wasn’t meant for this type of sudden sadness. Because in the end Twitter is meant for shock value reactions. It provides no concrete solace within its digital walls. So a nation will grieve publicly for a Sports icon for days, maybe weeks, maybe a mention in a month but then it will fade away. People will still remember Kobe but in their own private ways.
In the end that will be part of Kobe’s legacy. A tragic figure, lost to soon, a father wiped away from his daughters and wife by the ruthlessness of mortality. A hero with a complicated legacy (one of the complicated sexual assault allegations that this remembrance doesn’t have time to get into), gone but never forgotten.