A friend was posting online about the loss today of Kobe Bryant in a helicopter crash. He was talking about how it felt personal, even though he didn’t know Kobe personally. But we ALL knew Kobe. He was in our homes, regularly… as we watched his games. He lived his life out in front of us… I gotta admit, I was never a Lakers fan, but I knew Kobe. I liked Kobe. And for Pete’s sake, he’d won an Oscar! He was coming out of one career and barreling full speed into another one. He’d shown his potential fulfilled on the courts and was just beginning to show us what else he could do, this Renaissance man, this father of girls…
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/26/us/kobe-bryant-obituary/index.html
My dad was a father of girls… and one boy. As we grew up, dad took care of my brother while my mom took care of the four girls. She ruled the house with an iron fist, which at first I couldn’t understand why she had to be so tough, but when you’re a mother to four girls…
I’m a mother to one girl, and I know now how hard it is to raise a girl…to be strong, yet sensitive… ambitious, yet restrained… ignoring societal restrictions, yet still constrained by them. I can’t imagine raising four.
But my mom did. And the fact that we four girls from rural west Texas are all strong, educated, independent women is a testament to her tenacity, her hardness.
I said goodbye to her earlier this month, for the last time. She was 92 and had lived a full life, but I was still reluctant to let go, but let go of her I did. I miss her… and my dad.
And then today we had to let go of Kobe. This one is hard because he was young and had so much life ahead of him, it seemed. I don’t want to talk about his daughter, because I have a daughter, and the thought… I’m praying for his wife, her mama. I can’t even…
I created a memorial video for my mom, similar to what I had done for my dad four years ago. As I had done that time, I contacted the grandkids and asked what song they wanted included in their grandmother’s video. My daughter selected this one. It works for tonight.
2020 has gut punched me and it’s only January…
All Things Elda 