When Heroes Die
All across America this past Sunday, moms and dads tucked in millions of broken hearts. A hero–an icon who had become the face of an entire sport–was gone. Without warning, we were all hit with the news.
My first message about it was a text from my sister. It seemed a bit surreal. I immediately went and found an article to read for myself. Details were still limited. At that point there were only 5 known victims and we were being told he was survived by his wife and all four daughters.
I’ll admit I haven’t been a huge follower of the NBA, but I was in high school when Kobe made headlines by skipping college and going straight into the NBA draft. It was a huge deal and his eventual success made him a household name.
But for our kids, he was the face of basketball their entire lives. They didn’t know pro basketball without him. He was the most successful player of one of the most successful franchises for all they knew about basketball. This was a tragedy all in itself. A hero ripped from their world and a lesson in grief about to ensue.
Unfortunately, the story didn’t stop there. Details began to emerge. There weren’t 5 victims, there were 9. And he wasn’t survived by his whole family, one of them was with him. As the victims were announced and my kids became aware of three middle schoolers being on the helicopter, other questions in our house arose. Did they know they were going to die? Do you think they were scared? Why does God let kids die?
These are hard concepts for adults to wrap their heads around. As parents, our lens has us thinking about how we would have responded on the helicopter knowing our child was on board. The panic laced with an overpowering need to rescue our child. I have only ever slightly touched those feelings as I fished one of my submerged, non-swimming children out of a pool. But I knew as I went into the water there was a hopeful outcome to my actions. I’m not sure these parents were able to grasp onto any amount of hope. And that leaves me feeling sick for what those moments must have been like. How do you comfort your child, for any amount of time, when you know the outcome is devastation?
For my kids, it’s more confusion. They don’t understand why a helicopter would just stop working–especially if Kobe had so much money. Because to them, money is the end all, be all. They’re wondering how scared the young girls were on that helicopter. Because to them at this age, fears have never been about facing death but about broken bones, spiders, and parents finding out about bad grades. They’re shocked at how someone so great and larger than life can be taken. Because to their knowledge, story books never let the heroes die.
My oldest can’t believe it. It reminds me of how I felt when Princess Diana died. There was shock in the suddenness. I just couldn’t process the reality of it. And when you continue to see footage of that person over and over on TV (which is the only way you knew them and interacted with them anyway) it really almost seems like they’re still there. Except you watch it with sadness and feel a void that you can’t quite figure out how to fix.
For our house, the conversations have been about the fragility of life. We’ve been talking about how every moment of interaction we have with others matters because we never know when it will be the last. We’ve been talking about safety and what risks we’re willing to take and which ones we aren’t because no one is invincible. And we’ve been talking about heaven.
Heaven is a frequent conversation in our house. We have a baby and now a dog who live there. We talk about how our souls are only on earth as long as there is a body to house them. When the body dies, the souls are released. As a parent, I always tip toe through that conversation. I want my kids to know that we believe heaven is perfection and everything about going there is desirable. But I also want them to want to be here all together for a long time. It seems contradictory. I want them to fear death in order to stay safe, yet I don’t want them to fear dying because what is beyond is so much greater. And quite frankly, I’m not sure I do a great job walking through those conversations. They’re tough.
We’ve also made it a point to talk about all the victims. Kobe may have been the only one who had a presence, so to speak, in my kids’ lives. But I want them to understand that all of the deaths are a tragedy. All of the people on board left behind children, parents, and/or siblings. I want them to know that the lives of all the victims were important even if their visibility to the world had been small.
And so, that’s how we’re handling this grief. That’s how we’re walking through this unspeakable tragedy that has left an imprint on us. We’re talking it out–asking and answering, expressing and wondering.
Interestingly enough, when I thought of having kids so many years ago, I thought about all the different fun things we could show them and teach them. I never really thought about the hard stuff–and yet here we all are as parents doing our best to walk them through it because it is, in fact, inevitable.
Plans can be foiled. Machines can malfunction. Fears can come true. And heroes can die.
Rest in peace Kobe, Gigi, Sarah, Payton, Christina, Ara, John, Keri, and Alyssa.
Courtney Sage 