I added research and a bigger picture idea
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. Some might choose to grieve alone, but many people seek a sense of community to get through their trauma, and many people find that online. Kaplan addressed this in the same interview for Huffington Post when he said that “we are social creatures, we are meant to be with other people when we face adversity.” Seeking a sense of community and expressing your grief can be incredibly important steps in someone’s grieving process. According to Sobonfu Some, a very important voice of African spirituality; “Communal grieving offers something that we cannot get when we grieve by ourselves. Through acknowledgement, validation and witnessing, communal grieving allows us to experience a level of healing that is deeply and profoundly freeing.” I previously mentioned accepting any form grief takes, and being tolerant of others in a time of grieving. According to the Center for Grief Recovery and Therapeutic Services in Chicago, our grief can take many forms based on different factors, notably “our religious, cultural/ethnic backgrounds.”
Kobe Bryant’s eldest daughter had to find out that her father passed away through a leaked TMZ blog post. The news spread through her school incredibly fast and a friend of hers showed her the article. There is no good way to receive such news, but I can’t think of a way that is worse than what she experienced. This puts my feelings into perspective. As a Kobe fan, when I heard the news, it felt like my world briefly fell apart. Why did I feel so strongly about the death of a man I had never met? I felt guilty for feeling so strongly about Kobe’s death when his family was most definitely more hurt. I then began to question whether or not it made sense for me to feel so terrible.
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