no title.

so what do you say?  no, more to the point, what do you feel?  how do you feel?  how CAN you feel?
41 years old.  elite in his retirement.  played the game he loved for the same professional team his entire career.  worth half a billion dollars.  Married to the same woman, despite sexual abuse allegations.  husband, father, entrepreneur, Academy Award winner.  and now, dead.  just like that.

I don't usually focus on things like this, and I have to be honest; it's not the biggest thing on my mind right now.  but the nature of it deserves some thought.  it shocked me, i'm going to admit.  why?  I was reading about Kobe Bryant earlier today, as an item in a story about Lebron James, who surpassed one or another of Kobe's scoring records.  and the story that I was reading was how gracious Lebron was, being interviewed and talking about meeting and being inspired by Kobe Bryant.  and then, later today, I saw one blip on FB, and that's not enough for me to just repost so I checked some reputable places and it hadn't broke yet.  but by the time I was at my parent's house, helping my dad, it did break and it was all over everything, the Pro-Bowl game speaking on it and giving him a moment of silence.

so, what makes this something that bears speaking on?  I think it's that, it was just one moment to the next, you know?  you see a man at courtside watching a rival break his record, then you hear about that man being in a helicopter crash with his 13 year old daughter, and there are no survivors.  you think...all that talent, all that skill doing what he did, all that adulation, all that money, all that fame, all those fans, all that everything, and all those years ahead, only 41...and it doesn't matter.  because, as Scarface the Houston rapper put it. "It's unlikely, but you might be equipped with proceeds to change lives, but you die when the King says die".  and that's the truth.  but I don't think it's a 'God's will kind of thing.  human actions have more to do with deaths such as these than God needing 'another angel'.  i'm firmly in belief of that.  so what's the deal?  why so shocking?  Prince died...shock.  MJ died...shock.  Some get old enough that it's not so much of a shock, but others just seem to get taken away.  I guess, maybe, that's all there is to this reiteration.

I wasn't a fan, because i'm not a fan of sports any longer.  I watched him play, like I watched Mike play.  I know the game well enough to have enjoyed his career when it was in front of me. I try to never disregard the sullied and sordid parts, because often they accentuate and enhance the person who develops through them.

I know I was thinking earlier about my people, which means about black people, though i'm not very much of a racialist.  I am pro-black, but i'm also pro-human is all I mean.  anyway, I was thinking about back in the 80's, and even into the 90's and some today, how you had young people dying because they wore certain clothing.  if you wore an 8-ball jacket, you might get beaten up and have it taken, you might get killed for it.  people killed for fat ropes around their necks and five finger rings.  people killed for their Air Jordans.

 

I kind of wondered to myself, what other race, here in America, learned to so value material shit that they would kill each other for a jacket, or a pair of shoes, or a video game console, things of the material that glittered and shone?  and what really was behind all that? of course I wondered.  and i don't have an answer now anymore than i had before.  i know it makes me incredibly sad to think about.  and it's the other side of the coin for me.  like, people will grieve heavily for Kobe, though they only knew him through the television and the game they watched him play.  but the people that live next door, the ones they see every day that are in need, the ones out in the cold this very night, will they think about that person a little more closely, think about how that individual might be much closer to death than they thought before?  probably not.  because that's too real, and it's too close to home. 

I'm sorry that Kobe Bryant died in such a horrible way, as i would be for anyone who died in such a way.  Stevie Ray Vaughan comes to mind.  and i'm sorry for his family's loss.  i just hope people remember to love a little more, to see a little more and to try a little harder to be kind to the stranger who happens to live on their street, because those tears and feelings might just bring a positive change to one of them.  

but i'm being preachy.  

thank you, Father, for a day of introspection...