What does it mean to always be there?

Kobe Bryant's tragic death left so many people shocked, heartbroken and empty. I spent all of yesterday trying to parse out why I felt as empty as I have ever felt in my life before. Kobe Bryant was a generation defining athlete, but he never played for a team I supported. He is a Delaware Valley native, as am I, and I know people who had a much closer relationship to him than I did. I never even saw him play in person. I had no idea why I felt as I did; bereft of thought, ideas and even a concept of reality.

After an entire day of retrospectives, tributes and unvarnished pain from so many across the world, I think I figured out why I felt the way I did and still do: Kobe Bryant's presence was so outsized that it felt like he would always be around; he was so ubiquitous and influential that it felt like he was a fact of life. He wasn't just immortal, he was a constant like gravity or the earth's axial tilt. To see him go, so fast, so suddenly and so young is not something any of us were and are able to understand.

Kobe Bryant was always there. Even if he wasn't playing, he was a constant presence over everything in sports. You could see him at any given NBA game, or on the sidelines for a US Women's National Team game, or giving a bear hug to PK Subban or Alex Ovechkin because he was that ubiquitous. Athletes the world over have cited him as inspiration for what they do and why they are who they are, even if some of them can't make a shot if they yell "mamba". He wasn't just a generation defining athlete, he took that and expanded upon it after he was done playing, the likes of which no one had done before. Nothing would ever deny him in anything he ever did, and that included being a presence absolutely everywhere.

In his best moments, he was always there. In his worst moments, he was always there. When he wasn't his best self, a good teammate or even a good person, he was there. Whether he learned from his mistakes on or off the court, he was just there. Whether you personally believed he repented for his actions and learned from them, he made us ask questions no one else could. Such is a man who earned the right to be an outsized presence in our collective lives that his every move was important somewhere to someone, for better or for worse.

Perhaps some of that intense and insatiable competitive fire that drove him to his greatest successes and also dragged him to his lowest moments had flickered in retirement, but he was still a constant presence because he earned that right to be one. It wasn't just in basketball; he was announcing a major sponsorship deal for his sports drink Body Armor in MLS a week or two earlier, for instance. But even when he wasn't directly there, doing something that reminded you of the five time NBA champion and to-be Hall of Famer, he was still there because his impact, his influence and his legacy transcended his otherwordly skill set.

What he did, what he started and what he meant will not go anywhere though he himself is no longer with us. Such is a human being with such a giant impact in so many places that his untimely death may have physically registered on the Richter Scale. Our fundamental understanding of what is, what was and what will be feels irreparably shaken because Kobe Bryant is no longer physically here, even if so much about him always will be.

Every human being is there for a small group of family, friends, colleagues, etc. Some manage to create a larger impact than just that, and there are a select few who rise to the level of what Kobe Bryant became; someone whose death took away so much from so many who he touched, because his presence became so large, so great and so impactful that he himself felt like a fact of life; a constant and something in a world so divided that everyone agreed on without hesitation.

My prevailing emotions weren't so much sadness and despair as they were confusion, emptiness and bewilderment when I saw those tweets scroll by. I couldn't process how or why something like this could happen, because someone like Kobe Bryant is more than just an athlete, a father, or even a human being. He had become something more than even a superhero. He felt like a fact of life because he was always there. He was going to do something that made you go "yep, that's the Mamba", even if not as often as he once did because that's what he was and what he was always going to be.

That's gone now. It can't make sense to so many because a fundamental aspect of our lives and our understanding of it is gone now. It may never make sense.

How long will it take for us to feel whole again? For some, perhaps never again. His legacy, his impact and his name are eternal, and so too might his presence even after death, but that might not even be enough because he is no longer here. He was going to do something that re-enforced to us all that he was still the Mamba because he is, was and will be, and now he can't.

Perhaps that's why I and so many others felt so empty and drained. Life will go on, and there will be a new normal without Kobe Bryant around, but it won't be the same without him being there, because he always was, and we figured he'd always be.

But he's not anymore. That doesn't make sense. It may never make sense.