The Tragic Death of Whitney Houston

What went wrong, Whitney?

Like many, I was shocked to hear of Whitney Houston’s death this past weekend.  I found it particularly painful in that Whitney and I are the same age. Anytime someone my age passes away, I say a prayer and think, “there but for the grace of God go I.” However, our age is pretty much the only thing Whitney Houston and I had in common.   

Whitney came on the scene in the mid 1980’s, just as I was graduating from college and learning to make my way in the world. I remember purchasing her self-titled debut album on cassette, so that I could walk to work listening to songs like “How Will I Know” and “You Give Good Love” on my Sony Walkman. Her next album included hits like “So Emotional”, Didn’t We Almost Have It All” and my personal favorite “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”. I looked up the music video for that last song online and although the costumes and hairstyles are dated to the 80’s, the enthusiasm and exuberance Whitney conveyed in that one song are timeless. She looked young, fresh, innocent and happy.

Out of those four adjectives, innocence seems to be the one that always came to mind when I thought of Whitney Houston.  While Madonna was rolling around in a wedding dress singing “Like a Virgin”, canoodling with a Christ-like figure in “Like a Prayer”, and addressing the issue of teen pregnancy in “Papa Don’t Preach”, Whitney’s songs focused more on love found and love lost through award-winning hits like “The Greatest Love Of All” and the iconic “I Will Always Love You”.  She was the only artist to chart seven consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 Hits, and according to the 2009 Guinness Book of World Records, the most-awarded female act of all time.  The daughter of gospel singer Cissy Houston, cousin of legend Dionne Warwick and goddaughter of Aretha Franklin, it was clear right from the start that Whitney had musical talent in her blood.

Her “good girl” image seemed to lose some of its shine once she married bad boy Bobby Brown in 1992.  For the next decade, her performances onstage and in films were interspersed with accounts of physical abuse, drug abuse and erratic behavior.  Her interview with Diane Sawyer, where she emphatically denied using crack cocaine, asserting,” Crack is whack”, confirmed in my mind that something was truly wrong in Whitney’s life.

Whitney Houston fell off my radar over recent years.  Whenever her name came up in conversation, it was always something along the lines of “Did you see how thin she looked?” or “She looked like she was on something.”  For this reason her death came as a shock, but not a surprise.   If her behavior and alleged drug use had landed her in the papers more frequently, like Amy Winehouse or Lindsay Lohan, I guess I would have expected a premature death for her.  But because she dealt with her demons mostly in private, away from the cameras and reporters, surfacing just long enough to spark brief, negative comments, her death hits me harder than others might.

I mourn the loss of Whitney Houston and her God-given talent.  And though there are many ways to remember her, I’ll chose to remember that innocent girl from 1985 whose only wish was to dance with somebody who loved her.

Rest in peace, Whitney.