Kobe: A Reflection

A note as I’m processing Kobe’s helicopter crash...it might get long, but I wonder if others are still trying to figure out why the news about Kobe - a guy most of us have never met, and may have even rooted against on the court when he battled our team (Go Bulls) - grabbed our eyes and our ears and broke our hearts, yesterday. 

I’m back in LA for the Grammy’s, this weekend. This is a city I’ve called home three times in my life, and it always has an easy familiarity to it when I touch down. Corri and I met and fell in love in the Valley. We have our grocery stores and stomping grounds and memories attached to many places around this city we called home.  

And now my memories at a concrete courtyard where I spent many afternoons on @1043myfm have been superseded by a new memory.  

Little secret about me: Since becoming a dad, I’m increasingly scared to fly - I’m not scared for myself, I just want to make sure I’m there for my kids. And I want to see how their story plays out!  How tall will Rad grow?  Will he always love science and will he ever willingly eat an entire meal in one sitting?  Will Bash carry his affinity for basketball through to adulthood, and will he light up a room the same way when he’s 17 years old as he does at 17-months?

When I left Nashville, I had the same feelings that I‘ve become accustomed to since becoming a dad. My irrational what-ifs as I thought about leaving the kids home with their Shugie (Corri’s mom) for the weekend. Now that Bash can climb onto the couch, I cautiously pushed it a foot further from the banister by the stairs...and looked ahead to when I will return home knowing everything went well. I also had that nagging “but what if something happens to my flight.”

Corri and I were completely off-grid Friday and Saturday at Big Bear Lake. I got to snowboard (my favorite thing) and hold my wife’s hand (my favorite person) as we wandered the mountain village and ate none of the healthy food we’d picked up at Ralph’s grocery on the way out of LA. 

Sunday, we drove back to LA, out of the mountain and I wondered aloud about the intense fog - “is there still such a thing as smog in LA?  I don’t remember it looking like this very often.”

We got back to LA and Corri dropped me with friends as she went to get her hair and makeup handled for the Grammy’s that evening. I can only clean up so nice, and I don’t go crazy trying to fix (waving hands over face) this..  so I sat on the couch and decided to catch up on things I could learn now that I was in an LTE and WiFi world again. 

Then I saw a headline... brand new on TMZ. Breaking news...clearly still conjecture. And details were all over the place as the next hour unfolded. 

By the time Corri was back and we were in a car to LA Live (where the Grammy’s are held in multiple ceremonies at The Microsoft Theater and Staples Center), the news was sadder and sadder. I learned that Kobe’s daughter was on board, and 7 others. (Over the last 24 hours, I’ve read the stories of each passenger as they were released, because I wanted to honor them as REAL people - they deserve my attention, to be remembered as much as possible along with the globally-recognized man that was beside them).

It hadn’t hit me until the car was pulling up to the Awards that we were heading to the exact place where Kobe had built his legacy. The room in which thousands watched him play, while millions watched him from afar. 

As we entered the Grammy Pre-ceremony, there were a couple of jerseys sprinkled into a crowd of evening dresses, high heels, tuxes and statement pieces. There were electronic billboards (like I the picture I’ve attached of the JW Marriott and Ritz at LA Live) with stories-high tributes to the man that inspired so many in our generation to push harder, work harder, and dream bigger. 

And an hour later when we decided to grab a bite before the primary awards...we exited Microsoft Theater straight into the heart of LA Live.   

I spent two years of my life doing a weekly broadcast at LA Live from my @iheartradio custom tractor-trailer studio - which we planted in the exact spot that thousands of people now stood. Jerseys. Flags. Chanting and cheering and crying. News choppers flying above and this same crowd visible on every TV around the courtyard. 

At Yard House for dinner, every channel was showing the scene happening 50 feet away and I couldn’t concentrate on the conversation at my table. My head was now reeling as I tried to decide whether to compute the fear that a father would feel if he knew his daughter was right beside him and he was helpless to stop what was happening. I only let it hit my heart hard enough to make it sink and do flips, and then I had to push it away. People die every day. Also, the tragic story and pain were NOT lost on me...And yet, this one remains inescapable, because everyone around us is acknowledging it and feeling the pain. 

Entering the Staples Center last night was surreal. Outside was a sea of people who had admired Kobe Bryant from afar.  Yet in this room were the rich and famous..the people who had conversed with him at parties, maybe dined with him at their homes, or called him for advice. It felt different from outside. Kobe’s ghost already bounced around the arena - filling the enormous cavern with an air that was palpably thick with emotion. Not over-arching sadness, but sad...a night of celebration, but we are not quite ready to celebrate the profundity of the man, because no one has yet processed the 9 lives lost. But we needed someone to say something and Alicia Keys could hardly be rivaled. She held the room in a hug, and I believe it translated through the television screens to everyone watching.  If you can attach yourself to Kobe through those screens...could you be comforted through them as well?  I don’t know..but I know that every time his name or spirit was a part of last night’s show, the room let out a breath of relief. Music brings us together, and last night...this was why we needed to be together. 

As we exited the Staples Center through a quiet, cordoned area...the crowd in Kobe jerseys remained. I’ll add that video to this post - we were surrounded by Kobe’s face on screens all around the LA Live pavilion, and began to hear the crowd on the other side of a fence...and felt the community. This was felt by the entire planet.  To be standing in the literal epicenter will be indelible. 

I’m sure the processing of feelings and the experience will continue to change over time. In the moment, I was beside my wife. The person who makes me literally smile when I see her for her. I’m overwhelmed with how incredibly lucky I am to have the BEST person I’ve ever met choose to be by my side through all things. She’s gorgeous - inside. That’s how I see her. Glowingly beautiful from inside her soul all the way out to her amazing eyes and charm and intelligence. And she’s reaching for MY hand. And somewhere, a wife is reaching for a hand that can’t reach back anymore. Bam. It hit me again. 

Often in moments where our hearts are breaking, we instruct ourselves to “be tough” - I believe that is because we don’t feel we have the right to drag others down into our agony...but everyone around us was already there. This story is everyone’s story. And we all let this moment break our hearts. We see that even our immortal heroes are actually mortal and that anything can change in a moment. 

We think of the important people in our lives. We decide to remember the timeless advice: “life’s short, you never know how much time you’ve got...make it count”

Each time we learn that lesson, it’s etched a bit deeper.  We’ll still move forward and we’ll still feel stress from trivial things. We’ll still need an escape like the Super Bowl, and who knows how soon we will be back to binge-watching a new show.  But we might hug our kids a little tighter, or reassess who would remember us if we miss out on tomorrow...what is important and what could we do to create our legacy?  For some, it could be as simple as making our kids feel loved and confident. Others may wish to throw weight behind a meaningful cause (giving hope to others in their tough times) or to take our skills and share them with others. 

Alicia Keys used last night to remind us that it is when good people do nothing that bad people win. She didn’t specify the battle or the goals. I believe that is different for each of us. Honestly, some of us may be too tired or busy or otherwise burdened to allow this weight to sit upon our shoulders...and some of us may choose to push harder, work harder, and dream bigger.