Wife finds Kobe’s unopened letter ​

Kobe Bryant’s wife has revealed she this week found an unopened letter the NBA legend had left her before his tragic death.

Vanessa Bryant took to Instagram on Wednesday to reveal the spooky message contained in the unopened letter as the 38-year-old mother of three experienced her first birthday without her husband alongside her.

It is just 14 weeks since the Los Angeles Lakers icon died alongside his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven other passengers in a tragic helicopter accident.

Vanessa Bryant is still pursuing legal action against flight charter service Island Express Helicopters Inc and its parent company Island Express Holding Corp.

She revealed on her Instagram page on Wednesday (AEST) she earlier this week discovered an unopened letter addressed to her in her husband’s handwriting.
She said in a caption posted next to a photo of the unopened envelope that she waited until her birthday to open the letter so that her first birthday without her long-term partner would be just a little less confronting.

The message contained inside was simply spooky.

“Yesterday I found an envelope labelled To: The Love of my Life. From, Tu Papi,” she posted.

“I waited to open one more letter on my birthday. It gave me something to look forward to today.

“The irony is that Kobe had a photo of me drawn with an Angel holding me up by an artist on the cover.

“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.”

Her post included a series of love heart emojis.
 

In a cruel week of painful birthdays, Vanessa on May 2 also had to endure the birthday of her eldest daughter Gianna — for the first time since her tragic death.

“Happy 14th Birthday to my sweet baby girl, Gianna,” Vanessa wrote alongside a snap of Gianna smiling in a Micky Mouse outfit. “Mommy loves you more than I can ever show you. You are part of MY SOUL forever.”

In April a grieving Vanessa Bryant marked her wedding anniversary with a heartbreaking message

“My king, my heart, my best friend. Happy 19th wedding anniversary baby. I miss you so much. I wish you were here to hold me in your arms. I love you,” Bryant, 37, captioned an Instagram photo posted Saturday showing the late basketball star planting a kiss on her cheek.
 

Family members of the other passengers tragically killed in the helicopter crash have joined Vanessa Bryant recently in filing wrongful death lawsuits against the companies that owned and operated the aircraft.

The suits on behalf of three members of one family, and a woman who helped coach Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter in basketball, were filed electronically in April in Los Angeles Superior Court.
 

Unlike Vanessa Bryant’s lengthy lawsuit, the new identical seven-page cases do not name the dead pilot, Ara Zobayan, or his representative, as a defendant. All the suits allege that the two companies were careless and negligent.

The group was heading to a basketball tournament on January 27 (AEST) when the chopper crashed in thick fog northwest of Los Angeles.

An initial National Transportation Safety Board report said there were no signs of engine failure from the wreckage recovered.

Zobayan had nearly navigated the helicopter out of blinding clouds when the aircraft suddenly turned and plunged into the mountainside.

Vanessa Bryant, who filed the suit the same day as her husband’s large public memorial service in February, alleged that Zobayan was careless and negligent to fly in the fog and should have aborted the flight.

— with AP