Like many happenings in American News, I find out what’s going on via facebook, twitter or here, on Open Salon.  Because world news is much different than American pop news (USA Today), the way I found out about Whitney Houston dying was a post here. 

Whitney Houston dead?  Why am I surprised?  Why does it bother me so much?  Why was she so different of a person to me? 

I remember first hearing her...and being stunned.  Her voice was effortlessly bold and gutsy, filled with the rich, unapologetic anointing from God that was carried by Gospel singers.  Later I found out her roots were there, when she began singing with her church choir in New Jersey.  She also came as close as one could come to musical royalty – her aunt (and godmother) Aretha Franklin, her mother Cissy Houston, cousins Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick. 

The cover of her first album showed her poised with the perfect face and posture of a model – her hair pulled back and her eyes sultry and glowing.  I admitted openly to being jealous of her, so perfect with such a perfect voice. 

While we danced to the obligatory pop hits, like “How Do I Know?” and “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” my friends and I tried to imitate the soulful “Saving All my Love For You”.  

Later she hooked up with Bobby Brown, and started to go off the rails now and then.  There were rumours of drug use and open fights and police called to her house.  I would hear these reports and dismiss them, truthfully, because she still shined.  She was still perfect.  She descended from mighty, bullet-proof women who went through all the same stuff, and she would most likely pierce through her hard times and come out shining on the other side.

In  an interview with Diane Sawyer in 2002 (the highest-rated television interview in history)  Whitney actually addressed some of the rumours: drug use, abuse, a mercurial marriage. When Sawyer used the “C” word... Whitney appeared to grow another head.   "First of all, let's get one thing straight. Crack is cheap. I make too much money to ever smoke crack. Let's get that straight. Okay? We don't do crack. We don't do that. Crack is wack."

In early 2004, husband Bobby Brown starred in his own reality TV program, Being Bobby Brown (yawn) using his borderline celebrity status (and famous wife) to sell  a view into the disturbin and surreal life in their home.

Whitney was a star in the show, receiving as much screen time as Bobby Brown, and the ratings were keeping Bravo afloat and providing comedians with material.  The show was a horror show, and clearly depicted the train-wreck and un-reality of their lives.  Here were beautiful, rich people acting like they were living in a crack house.  It was easy to see that the situation was much more serious that anyone had heard of. 

How could this Golden Girl, the Princess of Soul, sell herself out for such a loser, for such an addiction?  Didn’t fame, fortune, God or family (take your pick) sustain her? 

But Whitney was different, wasn’t she?  She may have similar DNA to you and me, but I always expected her to defy the odds and come out singing.  That’s what always had happened before.  

In February of 2010 a National Enquirer cover story “Whitney Dying!” showed a pathetic image of her, unkempt and bony.  .  The covers of such tabloids were becoming more frequent, predicting the deaths of pop singers that flirted with disaster over and over again.  “Now experts predict Whitney – ravaged by drug addiction, an abusive marriage, family stress and a stalled career – has just five years to live,” reported the Enquirer. 

While the reports of the downward spiral went on an on, others like her (talented and addicted) were dropping like flies.  In truth, addicts are extraordinary people.  They live, laugh and love harder thatn all of us.  They struggle trying to turn off the feelings that are a moving ocean inside of them.  Most are insomniacs, never quite finding the strength to self-soothe or grab an addiction that is good.  Recovering addicts know the reality of wanting what they want when they want it - and the pain it brings- first hand.  I am one of them. 

Why would I be given the grace to leave the lifestyle of drugs and pain selfishness?  Why wouldn’t she? 

I see these news reports  today.  Even the pictures of the addict are beautiful.  She was different and beautiful and special.  And like many before her, she was sucked into the lie that she could live her life a certain way and not reap death.  How many addicts think the same thing? 

I miss her already...all the way over here.