Kobe Was an All-Star and His Game Gave My Family the Language We Needed

For one Korean American writer, the late athlete bridged generational and cultural divides

Chiwan Choi
GEN

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Kobe Bryant (center) sits with Lisa Leslie and Magic Johnson during the NBA All-Star Weekend in New York on February 7, 1998. Photo: Tim Clary/Getty Images

TThis year I will turn 50. When the topic comes up, my mother shakes her head in disbelief. I shake my own head, too. If I’m 50 that makes my brother 54, my dad 82, and my mom 79. Both in the final chapters of their lives.

Today is January 27, 2020. It would normally be an insignificant weekday. I am nearly 2,500 miles away from them, my parents and brother. It is gray and 30 degrees outside, the usual shitty weather that Pittsburgh graces us with every other day. This year I will turn 50 and I am crying watching Ice Cube on ESPN, his voice cracking, talking about Kobe Bryant.

I am waiting for my mom to call me from L.A. to check in on me, to ask me how I am, to sigh as she does when she’s trying to find words that I will understand — she tells me to go to church. Just as she did on November 11, 1991, when I was a student at UC Irvine, when Magic Johnson announced that he was HIV-positive. She called me as I was crawling back into bed in my dorm to ask, “Are you okay?”

I am almost 50 and I’m still waiting to tell my mom that I am lost, that I am afraid of the days that keep disappearing behind me. I…

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Chiwan Choi
GEN
Writer for

author of The Flood and the Daughter Trilogy—Abductions, The Yellow House & my name is wolf. partner at Writ Large Projects.