Spent the day entertaining a visitor from out of town. Ironically, one of the tripadvisor recommendations is helicopter tours in NYC, which I rejected as unsafe. I chose the 911 museum, despite having deliberately avoided ever visiting ground zero all these years. It cast a necessary somber and dark tone on the rest of the day. On the way home from dinner afterwards, Sirius interrupted broadcasts to advise that the Kobe Bryant had died.
At dinner I jumped up to watch a moment of TV when I saw Torrey Pines was on and wanted to see how Keegan was doing. When they flashed Kobe's face a few minutes later, I presumed it was just about LeBron breaking his record.
I'm reminded of some of the beautiful prose in "A River Runs Through It":
“My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him, all good things—trout as well as eternal salvation—come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.”
― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
With Kobe, we had witnessed a form of art, practiced in its highest form of athleticism. There is something beautiful about the game of basketball, and Kobe played it as well and as beautifully as anyone could. Yes, our main attraction to him was accomplished on the court, and yes his playing days were over. Still, the sense of loss that we all feel is still real despite being witnesses to a completed career of excellence that few have ever approached.
If there is any example at all, it is perhaps the diligence with which Kobe Bryant applied to hone his God given talents, some thing each of us can do in applying to any and all corners of our life. He was certainly gifted in a way that very very few of us are, but also extracted an incredibly high quotient of that ability through diligence, something that those who are highest achievers do.
R.I.P.