8/24

8/24 

Crumpled papers thrown into trashcans located in 

Awkward middle school classrooms

Or noisy cafeterias

Or anywhere you go, and every time you do it

All while we shout his name

At eighteen years

With the number 8 stitched in purple

The youngest person to ever start an NBA game

And one year later

The youngest to be on an All-Star team

Age is a funny thing

You get praised for doing it young

Winning and succeeding and living your dream

Doing it while you’re young

But the praise takes a solemn tone 

when it comes in the form of eulogy

If one asked you when you thought you would die

I doubt many of us would give the answer forty-one years old 

And I guess if we were given the choice

If we knew

We’d more prepared for people to leave us

When I think of age I think of milestones. For me, eighteen was the year that marked when I could vote in political elections. The twenty-first birthday is filled to the brim with champagne and late-night mistakes. Thirty is when it becomes socially acceptable to have get your first mid-life crisis. And sixty-five is when tickets to the movies become cheap again. For Kobe Bryant, it seemed like every age brought something greater than the age before it and something different than what that age would bring for most Americans. While most of us at eighteen were starting our first years of college or taking gap years, Kobe stepped into the realm of professional basketball playing for the Los Angeles Lakers. 

As someone from Los Angeles, a city that had already suffered the loss of local legend Nipsey Hussle in 2019, the pain that tore through me and my fellow Los Angeles natives was unspeakable when we lost Kobe Bryant. At age thirty most of us will have just started in our careers; Kobe Bryant was at the height of his. At age sixty-five many of us will be retired, travelling, spending time with family and grandkids; Kobe Bryant will never have that chance. He did everything right; he worked hard, was a good father, and stood by our city and team. 

He served as a role model for so many black boys and girls by serving as the epitome of success for black America. Kobe symbolized pride, confidence, determination- proving wrong time and time again anyone who doubted him. The importance of Kobe Bryant’s presence in black culture, American culture, and the basketball community was and continues to be immense. But there are no words to describe the importance of his presence to his family, to his wife and to his daughters. His retirement from the NBA in 2016 was sad for the city, but he had done so much for Los Angeles that it wasn’t the type of sadness that was tinged with anger aimed at the fact that Kobe wasn’t going to play anymore. Rather, it was a sadness based on how much we were going to miss watching him play, coupled with a gratefulness that we got to see him play for as long as we did. 

The impact that Kobe Bryant has had on not just the basketball community, but the entire world, is remarkable. There is currently a petition going around to change the NBA logo to a silhouette of Kobe Bryant. There is increasing demand for all NBA teams to retire the numbers 8 and 24 as a form of respect for Kobe’s legacy. The outpouring of love from other basketball players, fans, and America as a whole is truly telling of the man that Kobe Bryant was, and the memory of him that will persist in years to come. Kobe Bryant’s life was cut too short, in a way that words still cannot describe. As I and many others try to grapple with the reality of his passing, I keep my thoughts with those who loved him dearly and can no longer hold him close. 

He died twenty-six days into the new decade 

And suddenly the world stopped turning

I thought it was hoax

I think most of us did

Or at least 

Most of us hoped

Age is a funny thing

When you’re constantly told to not rush

To take your time in life

When its moments like these that serve to remind you 

That life isn’t that long at all

But

To have accomplished so much

To have touched as many people

To have inspired a generation

To have lifted a city

To have impacted a culture

To have shaken a nation

All at the age of forty-one years old

Is a truly ageless life