The ‘Celebration of Life’ ceremony organised by the Los Angeles Lakers for the friends, family and fans to say their final goodbyes to the nine members who lost their lives in the unfortunate helicopter crash last month, was magical.
It was one of those rare moments when people from all over the world, competitors from within the league, celebrities and common folk alike, came together and mourned the loss of one of the greatest men not just in the world of basketball, but outside of it as well.
Nobody can foresee something like what took the lives of Kobe and his baby girl Gianna, nobody can “prepare” for it. From talk show host, Jimmy Kimmel’s initial speech to Shaquille O’Neal’s short, simple and hilarious adieu to the ‘Black Mamba’, you could see that nothing was scripted and whatever these guys were saying same straight from the heart and with a lot of emotion.
But the speech Vanessa Bryant gave and the way Michael Jordan absolutely broke down in front of the entire stadium, it was devastating to watch.
From escorting Vanessa off the stage after her speech to taking the center stage, already in tears, Jordan looked nothing less than a senior family member of the Bryant family.
He shared some of the fondest memories of the Laker legend. He shared the story of how Kobe called him up at 2 in the morning to talk about giving basketball lessons to his daughter, how he left everything he had on the court, and how he was like a little brother to him.
With a face cover in tears, Jordan brought smiles to the faces of the people present at the Staples Center and to those watching online, when he joked about famous ‘crying Jordan meme’.
“Now he’s got me — I’m going to have look at another crying meme for the next …,” he said as the audience erupted in laughter. “I told my wife I wasn’t going to do this,” Jordan continued, “because I didn’t want to see that for the next three or four years. That is what Kobe Bryant does to me.”
“He wanted to the best basketball player that he could be,” Jordan said. “As I got to know him, I wanted to be the best big brother that I could be.”
“In the game of basketball, in life, as a parent, Kobe left nothing in the tank,” Jordan said. “He left it all on the floor.”
“When Kobe Bryant died, a piece of me died,” Jordan said moments before walking off the stage and into the crowd.
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