Grief is something that most people experience at one moment or another, but very few understand. It is hard to truly understand grief because how it is experienced varies from person to person. Julia Samuel, author of “Grief Works: Stories of Life, Death and Surviving,” works with grieving families and put it very well when she said “there is no right or wrong in grief; we need to accept whatever form it takes, both in ourselves and in others.” I think that this quote applies very well to the Kobe situation because of the extensive amounts of negative messages directed at people grieving publicly online. Many fans took to social media as an outlet for the expression of their grief. I came across countless messages implying that people had no reason to feel sad because they didn’t know Kobe personally. Those particular messages struck me because upon reading them I could almost hear the person who told me the same thing. Some even tried to tarnish his legacy through their comments that were so offensive that they leave you feeling nauseous. Imagine if a family member you cherish and look up to dies, leaving you feeling empty and sick. Many people felt this way about the death of Kobe.
Third-hand scene, heard about through various social media outlets
Kobe’s friends and family reacted very differently to his death. Everybody was visually devastated, many took to instagram with puffy eyes and with heavy hearts told their favourite Kobe stories. It hurt most to think about the ones that stayed quiet, notably his oldest daughter. She had been at school when the news of the accident broke. TMZ leaked the news in a blog post. The news spread incredibly fast around the whole world, her school included. She had to find out her father and sister died from an online post. She must have felt so lost in that moment, wondering if it was true, just wanting to call her father and hear his voice. News of his death induced a panic-attack because it was so unexpected, and she was eventually brought home to her mother.
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