Karl-Anthony Towns is helping fans grieve. That inspired a funeral home watch party

When Erica Hill opened Sparrow Funeral Home in Greenpoint in November 2021, she did it with an aim to make it more publicly acceptable to talk about lost loved ones and grieve openly.

So when she heard New York Knicks star Karl-Anthony Towns speaking about how he felt his late mother’s presence during the NBA Finals, it really resonated. The seven-footer told ESPN that he sensed “a calm and a peace” coming from “the woman above” who he has described as one of his biggest supporters.

Hill was moved by his candor — so much so that it inspired her to host a watch party in an unlikely place: her mortuary.

“The more we can talk about the people we love who have died and talk about our grief — it helps everybody,” Hill told The City Reporter. “We’re not doing it in silence.”

The response has been huge, she said. Hill’s post about the event immediately went viral, garnering more than 400,000 views on a social media post. Now, she’s worried the watch party might attract too many people; the space’s two rooms together can accommodate less than 200 seats.

Hill said she figures enough people will be put off by the idea of watching the game from a funeral home that it won’t get too crowded, though.

The response speaks to a sentiment shared by many New Yorkers watching the games from dive bars, living rooms and funeral homes alike: a generation has passed since the last time the Knicks went to the Finals in 1999, and took home the championship back in 1973. For those whose parents and grandparents watched the Knicks go all the way decades ago — and are now watching it without them — the feeling is bittersweet.

Ofelia Brooks, a writer and lawyer whose family immigrated from Belize to Brooklyn in the ‘70s and ‘80s, lost her mother a year and a half ago. It’s been nice to have Towns “reminding people that success comes with mourning,” she told The City Reporter. Though she grew up in southern California, she moved back to New York after college and law school, and now lives here part time between New York City and Chicago.

Brooks recalled watching the Knicks make it to the Finals with her family in southern California in 1999. “It’s a weird thing to have these memories of parallel experiences.”

“I can’t believe KAT is playing high level basketball losing his mom so young,” Brooks wrote on X, using Towns’ initials. “Truly cathartic to witness.”

Brooks wasn’t alone in posting through it. New Yorkers, Knicks fans and even Knicks haters alike expressed gratitude for Towns’ vulnerability.

“KAT’s being open about grief has made me a fan … The more we speak about grief and loss the more normalized it becomes,” one X user wrote, identifying in their profile as an Iowan. “As much as this pains me to say: Go Knicks!”

Towns’ mother, Jacqueline Cruz-Towns, died in April 2020 due to complications from COVID-19. While Towns was born in New Jersey, he played for the national team in the Dominican Republic, his mother’s home country, at 16.

“As you go through life, if you lose a parent … you just look for signs, and I’ll take any sign I could get,” Towns told ESPN after Game 2 about a play that went his team’s way.

Brooks knows what he meant. When she closed on a Chicago home near Kosciuszko Park, she took it as a sign. In Brooklyn, her family lived on Kosciuszko Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

“I just really feel like that’s a sign from my mother. I mean, she knows how much I miss New York. She knows how much like New York is now a bittersweet memory for me when I’m there,” Brooks said.

Brooks wishes more celebrities would speak up about their grief; it’s brought together her own group of friends who are going through grief together, and made her feel seen.

In Brooklyn, Hill was already excited about the Knicks’ recent wins, but she decided after hearing Towns’ comments about his loss over the weekend that she would host a watch party.

“We spend every day helping people carry the one they’ve lost,” Sparrow wrote in the caption of its Instagram post about the event. “KAT has been doing the same thing, out loud, in front of the whole world.”

“He looked up. He prayed. He won,” the event post continued. “KAT knows the ones we love never really leave. So do we.”

After the Knicks’ 115-111 nail-biter loss against the Spurs in Monday’s Game 3 of the finals, Hill posted again.

“We know a thing or two about loss,” a second Instagram post from Sparrow read. “See you Wednesday. Go Knicks!”