Every year I have need for more and more personal sympathy cards. Maybe it’s because I know a lot of people or maybe because I’ve lived in a number of places. Maybe it’s just my age, but it seems that every year I learn of more deaths of people I knew. Sometimes that person is a stranger, but my sadness is real because they feel like family. Such was the case this weekend, with the sad and sudden passing of Whitney Houston.
Whitney Houston was an amazingly talented woman who, unfortunately, had her struggles though the years. While all the talk in the past few days has been about her tumultuous marriage to Bobby Brown and her issues with drugs and alcohol, I prefer to remember Whitney as a mega-talented singer and a woman who donated much of her time and money to charity.
Whitney Houston had an incomparable voice. One just had to hear the few opening notes of her classic rendition of “I Will Always Love You” to know that she had a talent second to none. What some people may not know was that she was devoted to charity giving. She ran her own organization, the Whitney Houston Foundation for Children, which helped children with such issues as homelessness, cancer and AIDS. She was also involved with other equally important causes, such as the United Negro College Fund, St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, and the Children’s Diabetes Foundation.
I will be writing a sympathy card for Whitney Houston, and I hope it can find its way to her daughter Bobbi Kristina, who must be devastated at the loss of her mother. So even though I never actually knew her, I choose to remember Whitney for her grace, glory and spirit. I hope you will too.