Yesterday was unexpected, to say the least. Kobe Bryant was already on the minds of many basketball fans, as Lebron James had just passed him up on the NBA’s all-time scoring leaders board. Saturday night, he had publicly offered his congratulations to Lebron with words of respect and admiration for the new #3 on the list. Sunday morning, it was over. Gone in a flash, Kobe, his daughter “Gigi” (Gianna), and seven others with them, were taken from this world. What an awful tragedy! We mourn the loss of all nine victims, yet most of our thoughts are focused on Kobe, followed by those of his daughter and the unimaginable pain experienced by his surviving family. Why do we seem to care more about Kobe than the others who died in this crash, as well as all others who remain anonymous to us that die all over the world everyday? Aren’t their lives equally important and valuable in the eyes of God?
The answer to this is yes. Of course, the lives of each and every human being are equally valuable, because we all are persons made in the image of God. At the same time though, there is nothing wrong with us feeling the loss of some of those people with more weight than others. We already know this to be true. I don’t know anyone who would argue that we shouldn’t mourn the loss of a spouse, a parent, a child, or a best friend more than we mourn the loss of someone that we never met or even knew existed before their passing. That doesn’t mean that our family members are more important than the family members of other people across the world, but it does mean that they are more important TO US, and there is a difference. Understanding this can help us to also see why the death of someone like Kobe Bryant is felt much deeper than the death of others we don’t hear about in the headlines.
Though Kobe, for most of us, was not a family member or even someone we had met in person, he was someone who played a part in our lives. His life’s work made an impression on us personally. Many of us have had a kind of relationship with him in the sense that his life intersected with our own. We witnessed the highs and lows of his public life. We shared in his victories and defeats (positively or negatively depending on which team we were rooting for) and we were awestruck by the art he produced in the process. Yes, to be an athlete of the caliber of Kobe is to be an artist, and those who saw him in action were viewing a master performer as much as they were a competitor. Artists make an impact on their audiences, and much of what we remember now as we think back on the person of Kobe Bryant are those images he painted in our minds.
In a way, each human being is an artist. We all paint pictures in the minds of those we interact with. When we pass away, those images and impressions are what those around us are left with. While we may hold onto photographs, videos, or written words, we are still left with a sense of profound loss. While the artist has painted, his or her work is now complete. We long for more. But more than that, we long for the artist. We cannot separate the two.
The world lost Kobe Bryant yesterday. We did not lose his career as a professional basketball player. We did not lose his championships, or his impressive highlight reel, or the images of his intense game face or his smile in celebration. These things will live on, as will the written and recorded work he has produced since his retirement from the NBA. None of that is removed by his death. But we have lost Kobe Bryant. We have lost the artist himself, and it is our innate sense that we have lost something of great value to our lives because he is done creating that art for us to behold.
Somewhere along the line, though we don’t know when, we realize that the artist is worth more than his art. We cannot shake that innate knowledge of the incredible value of a human person. It is for this reason that it is good and right to mourn for Kobe Bryant. We mourn because we lost him. We mourn the loss of his daughter because we care about him, and part of that caring is to care about those closest to him. We mourn for his wife and the three girls who will grow up without their daddy. It is a tragic loss. There is no reason to feel guilty for mourning him in a way that we don’t mourn for those we don’t know. It is not an insult to them. It is simply acknowledging that we lost a brilliant artist who added beauty and color to our world.
