Kobe Bryant died. The only other celebrity death I can liken it to (in my lifetime, of course) is that of Robin Williams. I was at a Panera Bread in Denver, and after I saw the news online, I looked up from my computer screen and around the cafe.
It was insane. People’s phones going off, gasps catching like wildfire from booths to tables.
Robin. Williams. Died.
Now what??
When I saw the YouTube headline of Kobe Bryant’s fatal helicopter crash last night, I did a double-take (more like a quadruple-take). Was this real? Was this a joke?
I’m not even an NBA fan (like, at all), and I felt rocked. I felt even worse with the later news breaking that his 13-year-old daughter was also onboard the helicopter.
A father and a daughter. Gone.
I knew nothing of Kobe and Gigi’s story, and I soon learned of their bond, of a daughter’s vision to play in the WNBA and a father’s pride over his flesh and blood.
What an eerie thing to consider . . . a future that will never be.
A WNBA career that will never be.
A career and purpose beyond basketball that will never be.
A marriage or kids or grandkids that will never be.
Gone too soon. Both of them. Far, far too soon.
I’ve thought a lot about mortality since my grandfather passed last summer. As other friends and loved ones battle various conditions, I think about the future and how only more losses are coming.
This is life; death is life.
It won’t stop, death. It will only escalate, intensify, the losses more searing, year to year.
Assuming, of course, I don’t beat others to the punch and succumb to my mortality first.
Death. I’ve spent the vast majority of my life seemingly somehow unaware of it, and now it’s something I can never again unthink or unfeel — this notion of only seeing more celebrities, young and old, or my loved ones shedding their human shells. Or shedding my own — whether I see it coming, whether I’m ready.
We. Are. All. Going. To. Die.
With this awful Kobe story, I think about his last moments. Looking into his daughter’s eyes. Holding her close. Seeing her future, and his, theirs, disappearing. Praying that some way, somehow, they survive this fall —
— only for a snap that ends it all.
I’m on the road a lot as an Uber/Lyft driver. It’s no secret I love my road trips, too. I drive so much. More than most, I reckon.
I’ve been driving since I was 19, and I’ve never been in a single accident. Not even a bump in the Trader Joe’s parking lot (and that lot is crazzzy).
I wonder. Aren’t the odds increasingly stacked against me that one day I will collide in some manner with another vehicle? Whether through my fault or the other party’s?
I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. This notion of some definitive snap in my own life, on the road or otherwise. A snap beyond my control.
And then what?
We Christians like to say we know what’s going to happen when we die, but we do not. We can read Scripture and interpret it and hope for certain things, happy things, but ultimately we have no idea what happens the millisecond after someone succumbs to his mortality.
As a believer in Jesus, I certainly have my hope for what will eventually happen beyond earthly death — namely, spending eternity with Him and with fellow believers.
But what does that mean?
What does that look like?
How does it start? How does it all go?
What is the timeline for an eternity absent of time?
We don’t know. We just don’t know. And it’s a bizarre thing, the more I think about it, the more people around me enter into this vast unknown.
Death. The snap.
I could die when I’m 97, or I could die before I publish this post. I’m aware of my mortality than ever before. I’m not suicidal or paranoid, but I am aware. Aware every time I get in my car. Or board a plane. Or enter a grocery store or crowded building.
It’s there in my consciousness, a shadow sitting in the corner, unmoving. My mortality. Just . . . there.
I will die one day, and this is how it’s always been ordained. This is nothing new. Why has it taken me 30+ years to realize this — really realize this?
More than ever, I want to make every moment matter. I want to live every day I’ve been given to live.
It’s such a crime for anyone to stay settled and never venture out. I cannot bear the thought for myself.
I want to wander, aimlessly and aimfully, trying new foods and meeting new people and crying and laughing with those I love, and alone, alone in the splendor of mountains and cities, exhausting myself and being rejuvenated, again and again, sunrise upon sunset upon heartache upon new mercies.
I want to live with the hope that whenever my snap comes, whether it comes “too soon” or at just the right juncture, I made the most of my days. I lived for this life, but I also lived for another.
Another life beyond time. Another life with pain erased. Another life with bodies renewed.
Another life where mortality is a memory and with every step, the snap grows fainter.
I’m definitely more aware of the possibility of death at any time these days. I was in a car accident late last year. (Not my fault and not injured but still scary and the car was written off) I think it’s healthy and not fatalistic to be aware death might be around the corner. It’s causing me to hold less tightly to things that I shouldn’t be such as money.
Holding less tightly to things…that’s becoming more and more the story of my story. Call it becoming a “minimalist” or more of a realist. I want to make the most of my moments and not so much the most of my bank account or bins and boxes.