By Maya Foster

I was sitting on my Couch when I first saw the story on my feed and I felt my heart sink to the floor. I instantly felt fear, shock, and disbelief. Later as the news outlets confirmed what I had feared, I felt stunned and confused. I replayed the details and waited minute by minute for updates checking multiple news outlets. When I learned that the first story I read was even worse, I felt emotional and my eyes felt pressure as I started blinking back tears. I started reasoning with myself, trying to water down the emotion that almost brought me to tears. I never watched Basketball…don’t play video games…and live nowhere near L.A. It didn’t matter. I realized quickly that I was experiencing grief: denial, sadness, protest, and confusion for the loss of the late Kobe Bryant. Many of you are too. 

It’s hard to make sense of how we can feel so much pain for someone we haven’t met; someone we didn’t know; someone who didn’t know us. This is normal and a part of the human experience. 

We are relational creatures; programmed to make connections with people, objects, and experiences. This is why we attach and bond so intently with celebrities, influential figures, and other public icons. We connect with them, emulate them, and aspire to be like them. It is no surprise that when a figure we have cherished and embraced is suddenly taken from us, we experience immense grief. Other times, the simple reminder that life doesn’t belong to us, and health and fitness can’t prolong it, is terrifying, especially for those of us who believe that our actions can influence our outcomes. Still, just knowing the pain of others…his wife, his children, their friends is enough to evoke deep empathic sadness. 

Sometimes this grief can be confusing to us because we tell ourselves that we ‘shouldn’t’ feel as intensely for a person we haven’t met. We might even feel silly for our pain. This isn’t helpful. Connections are not always physical. Sometimes they are ideas, experiences, hopes, dreams, and mirror emotions. We can even experience grief for fictional characters in books and movies. If you are experiencing any form of grief, know that your feelings are normal, valid, and okay. 

Like other forms of grief, expect that it will look differently for different people. Here are 4 key tips to help you cope with the sudden loss of a public icon:

1. Avoid minimizing your connection: Telling yourself that you shouldn’t feel something is invalidating and inhibits the natural processing and healthy consolidation of emotions. Let yourself feel and instead reflect on what connection you will miss. Ask yourself, What am I going to miss most? What part of this loss affects me most? And then validate your feelings: “This is understandable because________”
2. Grieve with others (If you can): You might be inconvenienced by the new outlets replaying clips and having extended commentary, but know that this is collective grieving that can help bring about unity, solidarity, and community, which can be an antidote for feelings of loss, emptiness, and loneliness. On the other hand, If you feel flooded and overloaded by too much exposure to emotionally heightened commentary or find it unhelpful, it is okay to set limits and tune out, or find a particular outlet that you can stomach. I know I personally  clicked around several times until I found a radio personality that eased the shock and added value to my experience. 
3. Practice Acceptance: Accept that we are not in control of life and there are no formulas when and how we will get to live it. Accept that life is chaotic and sometimes bad things happen to good people and that people and that you don’t know what you don’t know. Accept that something happening to someone else, may not necessarily happen to you, and that you we cannot tell our fortunes. Accept that this will be hard for some and harder for others and we cannot change that. Accept that in this life, you are on borrowed time and so are your loved ones. Figure out what brings meaning to your life and invest in that.
4. Take what you need: As a form of self-care, I encourage you to be responsive to your own needs. Monitor what your body needs and take what you need. Take time; Take a nap; Take a break ; Take a walk; Accept Support or decline it; talk to your therapist; Talk to no one; watch the news or don’t. Take what you need.