Death, loss, and grief are all inevitable. These three will be experienced at some point in our lives, including our children.
This weekend, the world lost one of the most noted sports heroes of our time, Kobe Bryant. Kobe Bryant had spent most of his life committed to the game of basketball. Kobe was not just an outstanding player but also a trainer of the game.
On Sunday, January 26, 2020, Kobe, his teen daughter, and seven other people died in a helicopter accident. The world seemed to come to a pause filled with shock, denial, anger, and so much more. I personally found out about this horrible accident from my teen daughter. Together, both she and I scoured through social media outlets to confirm or deny this news.
Unfortunately, it was true. The hurt and pain that I immediately felt were paused for a brief moment when I looked into the eyes of my 14- year-old daughter. Her eyes told her story that quite possibly her mouth didn’t know how to articulate. It was just the night before, that she’d come into my room to discuss the death of a dear friend of ours and the passing of a favorite Disney star Cameron Boyce.
Today, she was yet again forced to somehow figure out how to understand the death of those that she knew personally and those that she’d come to know through television and social media. It has been once said by Grief Expert Alan Wolfelt that “anyone old enough to love is old enough to grieve”. I knew that we had to really talk but only if she wanted to.
