Vanessa Bryant opens a card from Kobe on her birthday

Vanessa Bryant opens a birthday card from Kobe. ‘It gave me something to look forward to’

Kobe and Vanessa Laine Bryant attend the 2018 Academy Awards Governors Ball.

May 5, 2020 12:42 PM PT

Vanessa Bryant opened a card from her late husband on her 38th birthday.

She wrote Tuesday on Instagram that she found the special message from Lakers legend Kobe Bryant the previous day in an envelope that read, “To: The Love of my Life. From, Tu Papi.”

“I waited to open one more letter on my birthday,” Vanessa Bryant wrote. “It gave me something to look forward to today.”

Vanessa Bryant lost her husband and their daughter Gianna in a Jan. 26 helicopter crash that took the lives of seven others. She didn’t include a photo of the card but wrote that “the irony is that Kobe had a photo of me drawn with an Angel holding me up by an artist on the cover.”

Vanessa Bryant spoke of such meaningful gestures by her husband during a public memorial service Feb. 24 at Staples Center.

“He was truly the romantic one in our relationship. I look forward to Valentine’s Day and our anniversaries every year. He plans special anniversary trips, and a special traditional gift for every year of our marriage,” she said. “He even had made my most treasured gifts. He just thought outside the box; it was so thoughtful, even while working hard to be the best athlete.”

Vanessa Bryant’s birthday is four days after that of Gianna, who would have been 14 last week.

“Missing the Love of my Life and my sweet little Mamacita- my fellow Taurus,” Vanessa Bryant wrote Tuesday. “Grateful to wake up to my 3 sweet girls today. Wish we were all together.”

She finished the post with six heart emojis and the hashtag #MyBirthdayWish.