The "seven others": a reflection
Kobe Bryant is dead!
So is his daughter.
So are "seven others".
Here are some headlines. It's worth reading these pieces.
"LeBron James' final message to Kobe Bryant will make you cry" BuzzFeed News, Jan 27th, 2020
"Here are the 9 victims of the Calabasas helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant and his daughter" Business Insider Australia, Jan 27th, 2020
"Overall, media coverage of Kobe Bryant's death was sloppy" Forbes, Jan 27th, 2020
"How did the media report Kobe Bryant's death? With confusion and misinformation, to start" Boston Globe, Jan 28th, 2020
"Our reaction to Kobe Bryant's death says more about us than him" Washington Post, Jan 29th, 2020
"How Kobe Bryant's Death Is Being Exploited By Conspiracy Theorists" CNN, OP-ED / Sports News, Jan 29th, 2020
"Kobe Bryant's family says inaccurate reports are adding to the pain after his death" CNN, Jan 31st, 2020
"The race to grieve: how social media has made professional mourners of us all" The Guardian Australia, Feb 1st, 2020
The 'webiverse' is clattering with the posts.
Barak Obama (January 26, 2020) tweeted: "Kobe was a legend on the court and just getting started in what would have been just as meaningful a second act. To lose Gianna is even more heartbreaking to us as parents. Michelle and I send love and prayers to Vanessa and the entire Bryant family on an unthinkable day." via Twitter.
Could the ex-President and his wife not have also sent their "love and prayers" to the "seven others" who died with Bryant and his daughter, side-by-side?
Boston Globe reporter, Chadd Finn (above), used the expression "the race to confirm the accident" when outlining what happened in those first hours. This metaphor paints a picture of "winning and losing", of tactics and even training, in order to get to the "finish line" first. It is not beyond belief that reporters acquire skills that enable them to beat the rest to the scoop and this becomes the be-all-and-end-all rather than the human beings who are the subject of their stories.
No doubt, we all have our reactions when a well-known person dies, particularly in circumstances such as this one. When a person's life ends in circumstance over which he or she has no control we often label this a 'tragedy'. It's like a moment of lost opportunities, unfathomable, never to be forgotten. For the Bryant family, life has been irrevocably changed.
For the "seven others", life has been irrevocably changed.
Media coverage and the public pronouncements of thousands of people would seem to suggest that Bryant and his daughter are more important, more deserving and more worthy of our grief.
This is an illusion. It is a story we create to hide something that we all recognise in ourselves but don't want to utter. That something is that death is ordinary and is, simply, the end of life.
This is not to deny that Kobe Bryant inspired many, that people's lives will be changed by their attitude to this event. But this is actually the point. The event itself is no more tragic or devastating or significant than any other similar event, except that we make is so.
Every person on that helicopter faced the same danger, had their own thoughts, desires, experienced the same panic, faced the same death at the same moment under the same devastating circumstances. Yet we feel the need to exalt only one of them. We are drawn into the story web of one of them. Elaborate rituals are held for one of them. Tributes and reactions multiply exponentially.
The language used by celebrities to describe what happened demonstrates how the increasing use of exaggerated superlatives places events like this out of all proportion to the actual reality. In addition, Bryant's daughter Gianna is used by some to emotionalise her father's death even further. She experienced her own fear, her own dread, her own death, which doubtless she saw coming with her young eyes open (according to investigators, the rapid descent took about 1 minute).
One cannot imagine what the pilot would have felt, thought or regretted at that moment.
However, one can imagine how quickly people will want a scapegoat!
Death is always more about those of us who are left alive, despite our efforts to make it about the ones who have died. Our sadness is real. Our feelings of devastation are real. Out journeys through grief are real and lasting.
When our emotions surge to the surface it is difficult to put things into perspective. They say, don't they, that important decisions should never be made when we're in the grip of an emotional reaction. After all, they pass.
The deaths of Bryant and his daughter are no more tragic than those of the seven other people on board.
The ripples roll outward, as much from the one as the other and have their influence.
Each moment will hold burdens, doubts and revelations, as much for the one as for the other.
At the beginning and at end, we are all one.
So is his daughter.
So are "seven others".
Here are some headlines. It's worth reading these pieces.
"LeBron James' final message to Kobe Bryant will make you cry" BuzzFeed News, Jan 27th, 2020
"Here are the 9 victims of the Calabasas helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant and his daughter" Business Insider Australia, Jan 27th, 2020
"Overall, media coverage of Kobe Bryant's death was sloppy" Forbes, Jan 27th, 2020
"How did the media report Kobe Bryant's death? With confusion and misinformation, to start" Boston Globe, Jan 28th, 2020
"Our reaction to Kobe Bryant's death says more about us than him" Washington Post, Jan 29th, 2020
"How Kobe Bryant's Death Is Being Exploited By Conspiracy Theorists" CNN, OP-ED / Sports News, Jan 29th, 2020
"Kobe Bryant's family says inaccurate reports are adding to the pain after his death" CNN, Jan 31st, 2020
"The race to grieve: how social media has made professional mourners of us all" The Guardian Australia, Feb 1st, 2020
The 'webiverse' is clattering with the posts.
Barak Obama (January 26, 2020) tweeted: "Kobe was a legend on the court and just getting started in what would have been just as meaningful a second act. To lose Gianna is even more heartbreaking to us as parents. Michelle and I send love and prayers to Vanessa and the entire Bryant family on an unthinkable day." via Twitter.
Could the ex-President and his wife not have also sent their "love and prayers" to the "seven others" who died with Bryant and his daughter, side-by-side?
Boston Globe reporter, Chadd Finn (above), used the expression "the race to confirm the accident" when outlining what happened in those first hours. This metaphor paints a picture of "winning and losing", of tactics and even training, in order to get to the "finish line" first. It is not beyond belief that reporters acquire skills that enable them to beat the rest to the scoop and this becomes the be-all-and-end-all rather than the human beings who are the subject of their stories.
No doubt, we all have our reactions when a well-known person dies, particularly in circumstances such as this one. When a person's life ends in circumstance over which he or she has no control we often label this a 'tragedy'. It's like a moment of lost opportunities, unfathomable, never to be forgotten. For the Bryant family, life has been irrevocably changed.
For the "seven others", life has been irrevocably changed.
Media coverage and the public pronouncements of thousands of people would seem to suggest that Bryant and his daughter are more important, more deserving and more worthy of our grief.
This is an illusion. It is a story we create to hide something that we all recognise in ourselves but don't want to utter. That something is that death is ordinary and is, simply, the end of life.
This is not to deny that Kobe Bryant inspired many, that people's lives will be changed by their attitude to this event. But this is actually the point. The event itself is no more tragic or devastating or significant than any other similar event, except that we make is so.
Every person on that helicopter faced the same danger, had their own thoughts, desires, experienced the same panic, faced the same death at the same moment under the same devastating circumstances. Yet we feel the need to exalt only one of them. We are drawn into the story web of one of them. Elaborate rituals are held for one of them. Tributes and reactions multiply exponentially.
The language used by celebrities to describe what happened demonstrates how the increasing use of exaggerated superlatives places events like this out of all proportion to the actual reality. In addition, Bryant's daughter Gianna is used by some to emotionalise her father's death even further. She experienced her own fear, her own dread, her own death, which doubtless she saw coming with her young eyes open (according to investigators, the rapid descent took about 1 minute).
One cannot imagine what the pilot would have felt, thought or regretted at that moment.
However, one can imagine how quickly people will want a scapegoat!
Death is always more about those of us who are left alive, despite our efforts to make it about the ones who have died. Our sadness is real. Our feelings of devastation are real. Out journeys through grief are real and lasting.
When our emotions surge to the surface it is difficult to put things into perspective. They say, don't they, that important decisions should never be made when we're in the grip of an emotional reaction. After all, they pass.
The deaths of Bryant and his daughter are no more tragic than those of the seven other people on board.
The ripples roll outward, as much from the one as the other and have their influence.
Each moment will hold burdens, doubts and revelations, as much for the one as for the other.
At the beginning and at end, we are all one.
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