Vanessa Bryant is going to be featured on People's "Women Changing the World" issue, and she opened up about how she's facing her new life after the tragic deaths of her husband, basketball legend Kobe Bryant, and their daughter Gianna. "They motivate me to keep going," she said. Kobe and Gianna passed in an untimely helicopter crash along with a handful of colleagues last January. "I can't say that I'm strong every day," she told PEOPLE. "I can't say that there aren't days when I feel like I can't survive to the next."
Vanessa is working to raise her oldest daughter, Natalia, 18, and her younger daughters, Bianka, 4, and Capri, 20 months. She also took charge of some of Kobe's unfinished creative projects with Granity Studios as well as relaunching Kobe's charitable non-profit organization, Mamba and Mambacita Sports Foundation, named after Kobe and Gigi. It works to empower and encourage young girls to pursue sports and provides equal opportunities in the industry, something Kobe was fiercely passionate about.
Vanessa has been praised for publicly harrowing this last year with unwavering grace and courage. Still, that doesn't mean she isn't permanently changed. "This pain is unimaginable [but] you just have to get up and push forward," Vanessa said. "Lying in bed crying isn't going to change the fact that my family will never be the same again. But getting out of bed and pushing forward is going to make the day better for my girls and for me. So that's what I do. I guess the best way to describe it is that Kobe and Gigi motivate me to keep going," she continued. "They inspire me to try harder and be better every day. Their love is unconditional and they motivate me in so many different ways."