Vanessa Bryant Celebrates Birthday By Opening A Letter From Kobe Bryant
Birthdays were always special for Vanessa Bryant.
Her husband, Kobe, was a romantic and he'd surprise her with gifts and heartfelt poems and letters.
Vanessa recently found a card that Kobe had written for her and she waited to open it until her birthday on Tuesday so she could have one last surprise from him.
"Yesterday I found an envelope labeled To: The Love of my Life. From, Tu Papi ❤️I waited to open one more letter on my birthday," Vanessa wrote on Instagram. "It gave me something to look forward to today.❤️"
Kobe died in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26 along with his and Vanessa's 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven other people.
Vanessa was taken aback when she saw the cover of the card.
"The irony is that Kobe had a photo of me drawn with an Angel holding me up by an artist on the cover," Vanessa wrote. "Missing the Love of my Life and my sweet little Mamacita- my fellow Taurus. Grateful to wake up to my 3 sweet girls today. Wish we were all together. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️#MyBirthdayWish"
Vanessa met Kobe when she was a 17-year-old high schooler and he was a 21-year-old Lakers star in 1999. They got engaged when she turned 18 and married on April 18, 2001.
At Kobe's and Gianna's public memorial at Staples Center on Feb. 24, Vanessa spoke about the deep love she and her husband shared.
"We really had an amazing love story," she said. "We loved each other with our whole beings. Two perfectly imperfect people making a beautiful family and raising our sweet and amazing girls."
Vanessa said a few weeks before Kobe died, he texted her that he wanted to spend more time together alone because she was his best friend.
"We never got the chance to do it," Vanessa said. "We were busy taking care of our girls and just doing our regular everyday responsibilities. But I'm thankful I have that recent text. It means so much to me. Kobe wanted us to renew our vows. He wanted Natalia to take over his company and he wanted to travel the world together. We talked about how we would be the fun grandparents to our daughters' children. He would have been the coolest grandpa."
