Mamba Mentality

Mamba Mentality: To be the best version of yourself.

I grew up in a home where sports claimed the television almost every night. Whether it was college football, March Madness or the Knicks, Giants and the beloved Yankees, sports were always on.

To this day, I love watching a game and almost find comfort in the voices I grew up hearing, like Michael Kay and Mike Breen.

I can picture my mom in my head, happily curled up in the leather club chair reading a paperback romance novel while my dad watched a game. 

She didn’t know too much about organized sports. I know she loved the water and was a competitive swimmer growing up and I can’t forget that she coached my YMCA league basketball team and led us to the championship victory! But she wasn’t up to date on key players, stats or MVP’s, so I found it unusual that she became almost obsessed with Kobe Bryant at the end of 2019.

She was very much taken over by her diagnosis at this point but still had the ability to articulate herself.

“Kobe!” she’d say with excitement, “Kobe Bryant!”.

This excitement was adorable, kind of funny and had a childlike endearing quality to it.

Kobe’s death hit the news in January of 2020 and my mom was devastated.

“Kobe. Can you believe it?” She’d say with sorrow.

“Kobe is gone. I can’t believe it.” She’d say with concern and sadness.

Over the years I’ve noticed her dementia be the source of confusion, uncontrollable emotion, unexplained interests and associations - Kobe Bryant being one of them.

My mom passed three years after Kobe, to the day, on January 26th 2023.

The crazy thing is, they also share the same birthday, August 23rd.

And they had one major belief in common: be the best version of yourself.