The Blessing of Grief: Should We Mourn Kobe?
In 2014 the author Charles Bowden died unexpectedly.
He was a hero to me and a symbol of things that form my soul.
I grieved his death deeply and those that know me know that grief has subsided, but not ended.
I did not “know” Bowden in any significant way, but felt deeply connected to him and his work.
What he did, how he did it, and what he represented to me, resonated so deeply in me that grief was the only proper response to that loss.
So it is with millions of people and Kobe Bryant.
This is not a bad thing.
One can only grieve as deeply as one has loved and love and grief are from the same family.
Anything that provokes us to feel either is a blessing, though often a terribly painful one.
Grieving means you’re still alive, still capable of feeling love and loss, and still capable of sharing that which reflects the fact that we are made in the image of God…even if it’s grief over someone you don’t personally know.
When an entire nation grieves it is an opportunity for us to get in touch with the better angels of our nature as a community and a country.
It should…change us all for the better.
So, if you feel grief over the death of Kobe Bryant, feel it to the fullest without apology.
We should never have to apologize for feeling loss…it’s a recognition that things are not as they should be and the unspoken hope that someday they will be.
Mourn with those who mourn, weep with those who weep.
Finally, there are those who do not mourn Bryant because he did not represent something noble or virtuous to them but something dark and dreadful.
Respect them as you desire to be respected…that’s another sign of the presence of our better angels…
“One can only grieve ad deeply as one has loved” words worth pondering….
Sometimes only God’s grace gives us strength to go on
Wesley Towne released a Better Days Podcast message on this subject. It is very sweet.
I love that he stated. “not every loss has a silver lining” and ‘not every loss has a lesson”. We’ve all heard way too many sermons glossing over loss and grief that ignore normal human emotions.
I enjoy the Better Days Podcasts, on the subject of mental health and suffering. Highly recommend.
Totally agree with you, Michael. For me, Kobe’s actions made it hard to like him. I just struggled looking past his lecherous behavior. Mainly because there was a victim; a young woman who was crushed by Bryant’s attorneys and many in the media.
Yet many of my old So Cal friends love Kobe and are truly feeling a sense of loss. I feel no need to impose my feelings upon them. And, in the greater scheme of things, I feel for Kobe’s family and friends. Death isn’t something to cheer about.
FWIW, I felt great loss at the death of David Bowie, and his early years were an absolute wreck.
PH
Re: Bowie… you were not alone.
There’s a meme going around with a photo of the other victims encouraging people to post so they won’t be forgotten or overshadowed by the coverage of Kobe. I see it as sincere yet also not so. People die every day around us. Why not pull local obits of those that seemed to have died before their times and post about that? It’s about emotional investment.
In high school, a popular and truly nice junior girl died in a head on collision the morning following our first sober grad night. She fell asleep at the wheel driving home in the morning. Her younger sister was a passenger, yet survived, albeit with a permanent limp.
Our small high school of 800 was in tears and future sober grads forbade students driving home in the morning. Who could have known? The yearbook committee did a full page picture and tribute to Jamie the following year in which she would have been a senior. My mother didn’t like that Jamie crossed a double yellow and killed the driver coming the other way, a young pastor with a young wife and baby who had a tiny CC start up in one of our small towns. My mother didn’t like that this fact wasn’t acknowledged.
The community focused upon our home girl and ignored the other victim.
Was it right? Wrong? Neither? Or just a community mourning one of its own.
Duane,
I’ve never grieved the loss of a celebrity like a did for DB. I so liked the person he became after marrying Iman, and even more after the birth of Lexi. A man of grace, humor, intelligence and kindness. I was actually surprised by how much I felt planet earth was artistically poorer the day he left us.
I like the content of your closing sentence Michael (what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature).
In some strands of the Christian religion there is no such thing as a ‘better nature’, sin is always the default condition of humankind.
There was a time when I wouldn’t have dared question this idea.
I now flatly reject it.
In my personal experience about grief especially in faith communities, one word came into play. DONT. That summed it up, Don’t. Don’t grieve, don’t need, don’t make a mess, don’t bother management, don’t be a pest, don’t need attention (especially God’s), etc.