I just found out Kobe Bryant crashed in a helicopter accident… I’m sitting in a restaurant called the Pantry in downtown LA, right next to the Staples Center having a late breakfast with Alice, before I have to rush to a Sunday editing session for Fabulous Filipino Brothers. The news came through on my phone from a group chat I’m in for my fantasy football league, it didn’t feel like it was real, I was like, this can’t be…. I quickly googled it. It wasn’t even coming up immediately on google… but then, there it was, a few entries down… it must have just happened, it hasn’t even hit the airwaves yet… I starting to feel sick to my stomach, there’s no way… not Kobe.
I mean, I don’t know the guy personally, but I feel like I know him, we’re almost the same age and ran in similar circles, I’m a Laker fan and watched and cheered all his heroics… I remember seeing him for the first time in Los Angeles at the Fat Burger on La Cienega, the old one that was just a stand, the original that’s not there anymore, it was the middle of the night, he rolled up, he was probably only 18 or 19 at the time. I remember working with Brandy on Moesha and he took her to prom, I remember shopping in LA and seeing his wife and the girls picking out clothes and asking their mom if they can get them…
I don’t know why it makes me so sad, it came out of the blue and I wouldn’t have thought that something like this would effect me so hard. Maybe because we’re the same generation, maybe because I’m a big fan and marveled at all he’s accomplished, maybe because he was a friend of so many friends of mine… I always thought I would get to meet him and hang with him someday. My friend Michelle, who worked with him for many years always tried to get us together thinking we would really hit it off… I always thought we would too, just ran out of time.
This is one of those moment where you’ll always remember where you were when it happened… when you found out Kobe died.
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