Vanessa Palacios, the nurse at Carver Elementary School, with some of the memorabilia she has collected over the years from a special kinship with the late Kobe Bryant. The former NBA star gave Palacios several signed items to pay for her father’s funeral.
Until around noon, Jan. 26 was an unspectacular day in the life of Vanessa Palacios.
“I had just arrived home from running errands” that Sunday, said Palacios, who is known to many in the San Marino community as the warm, caring nurse at Carver Elementary School. “I received a call from my brother and he asked me if I had heard the news. We went back and forth for a couple minutes until he realized I had no idea what he was talking about.”
Finally, he told her the story that would soon be on the lips of most of the world: Former Lakers star Kobe Bryant had lost his life in a tragic helicopter accident.
“I told him, ‘You’re lying,’” Palacios said recently. “‘You’re lying.’”
She checked the news and social media until her worst fear was confirmed. Inconsolable, she fell to the floor as her mother tried to comfort her.
“You’re lying…”
While many on the planet felt a unique kinship with Bryant — who played his entire 21-year NBA career in Los Angeles with the Lakers — for Palacios, it was personal.
Shortly after Bryant arrived in Southern California, Palacios was sent on an errand by her uncle, Daniel Ceniceros, dubbed “Laker Man” by many and a famous collector of sports memorabilia.
“My uncle had become friends with the Lakers’ equipment managers even before Kobe came to the team,” Palacios said. “He knew right away that Kobe was going to be a star, so he would send me and my friends to the Lakers’ practice site in El Segundo. We would go once a week and get Kobe’s autograph, and my uncle would sell it on eBay. I also had some things signed that I kept for myself.”
Palacios recalled that for a while she visited Bryant once a week, often in the company of a Laker equipment manager.
“We had some nice conversations,” Palacios said. “Sometimes we would meet and go to dinner at Kobe’s favorite Mexican restaurant.”
Shortly after becoming engaged to his future wife, who shares a first name with Palacios, Bryant one evening greeted his friend with renewed enthusiasm.
“He said, ‘Vanessa … I like your name now!’” Palacios said with a laugh. “I said, ‘Yeah … I wonder why!”
Her laughter was soon accompanied by a few tears, but the broad smile remained.
Their casual acquaintance jumped to another level during a visit in 2017.
“We met up and Kobe asked me how I was doing,” Palacios said. “I told him that my father was dying. He asked me a few questions and then he just blurted out, ‘I am going to sign a few more things. You go sell them and pay off whatever needs to be paid off.’”
Bryant retrieved a trove of items and signed every piece. The proceeds paid her father’s last months of rent and his entire memorial service.
Conversation with Palacios quickly makes clear that her appreciation of the man known as Mamba far exceeds that of a schoolgirl crush or occasional source of a few extra dollars.
“What I will miss about him the most is he gave me so much advice on life,” Palacios said, struggling again to form the words. “He always encouraged me to push forward. Push forward. Don’t give up on your dreams. Push forward.”
His counsel has produced tangible results.
“I have pushed myself educationally,” Palacios said. “I wasn’t moving forward with my education and I graduated from Cal State L.A. in 2008. Kobe told me to educate myself in other fields, so I would have something to fall back on. So I picked up a B.A. in kinesiology and a minor in child development.
Vanessa Palacios accompanied San Marino High School’s recent trip to Yosemite, where she gave this personal tribute to Kobe Bryant.
“He told me you always want something to fall back on, so educate yourself for the rest of your life,” said Palacios, who is working to become a certified medical assistant. “I have just kept going because it is true what he said and I still want to keep going. Now that he is gone, I am going to push it more. I need that Kobe mentality.”
She is also adopting the Kobe physicality. As her mentor once did, Palacios wakes up at 4 a.m. to start the day at the gym.
“He encouraged me to do that,” she said. “Kobe said specifically, ‘I don’t like lazy people.’ I think of those specific words every day. That has inspired me the most. I don’t want to be one of those people who Kobe doesn’t like.”
Shortly after Bryant’s death, Palacios like many others found herself on a pilgrimage to Staples Center, where fellow admirers have set up all manner of makeshift memorials. She even traveled to the Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, where Bryant’s footprints and handprints, usually kept inside the building, were brought outside for public viewing.
“It hasn’t helped,” Palacios said. “At least it hasn’t worked for me.”
She was chaperoning San Marino High School’s annual winter survival trip to Yosemite National Park last week and was out of communication range, so a friend applied on her behalf for a ticket to Bryant’s memorial service, which will be held in Staples Center on Monday, Feb. 24. She has already asked for the day off.
Unlike the millions who saw him only from a distance or on television, Palacios will carry forward lifetime memories of real conversations and inspirational moments.
“He shared so many inspiring things with so many people,” Palacios said. “He said you have to work hard for your dreams. They are not going to fall into your lap.”
And then she said no more.
