Bobbi Kristina…Everyone Failed You!

Right now, I’m playing one of the legendary Whitney Houston’s songs, I Look To You. The video is especially haunting given the circumstances of the tragedy that took her life.  It is a beautiful, ethereal video.  That voice is still strong.  I haven’t listened to Whitney’s music for several years.  I’m a little emotional…frankly.

Bobbi Kristina Brown was found face down in a tub in her Atlanta town home on January 21, 2015.  Apparently, she was under the influence of drugs. Her boyfriend, Nick Gordon, was the last person to see her alive. For 7 months, she lay in a coma. On June 26, 2015, her only child, Bobbi Kristina, died in hospice care.  She was laid to rest on Monday, August 3, 2015.

When Whitney died in 2012, it shocked the industry and the world.  That voice–that beautiful, God-given talent, forever silenced.  Her funeral was broadcasted live; it touched many who watched, and reminded people of just what was leaving this earth.

Now just barely 3 years later, her little girl has joined her in death.  A sad end to a life that was barely lived.

Bobbi couldn’t bare the loss of her mother.  It gutted her…as she remarked to someone.  Every day was a a struggle for her after her loss.  She searched for comfort but found none.  So, only knowing how to numb her pain instead of learning to gain strength so she could move on, she turned to drugs and alcohol.  That’s what she learned from her parents.  Let’s just be real…Bobby Brown and Whitney are as much responsible for her death.  Yes, she made the choice to use drugs, but what was her alternative?  She had none shown to her.  They openly got high and drunk in front of their child.  Parents are the first teachers.  But when both parents are dysfunctional; what does a child do?

Right now, I’m a little teary-eyed.  Seriously.  I’m playing I Look to You over and over as I right this, drawing inspiration for the words to this piece.  I’ve shaken my head…trying to understand everything that has played out over the course of time before Bobbi’s death, and I just can’t make any sense of it all.

The families (Browns and Houston’s) have been fighting each other.  There was a fight that broke out with Pat Houston and Leolah Brown at the memorial service in Atlanta on last Saturday.  Tyler Perry and security escorted Ms. Brown out in which she gave an impromptu interview with reporters, indicating, that a war was about to start.

Leolah Brown talks with media members outside the church hosting a funeral service for her brother Bobby Brown’s daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, Saturday, Aug. 1, 2015, in Alpharetta, Ga. She said she was angry because Pat Houston was speaking at the funeral. Pat Houston is the sister-in-law and former manager for the late Whitney Houston. Bobbi Kristina, the only child of Whitney Houston and R&B singer Bobby Brown, died in hospice care July 26, about six months after she was found face-down and unresponsive in a bathtub in her suburban Atlanta townhome. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

But truthfully, a little girl, barely 22 years old is gone.  We’ll never know what she could have accomplished or who she could have grown up to be.

My heart goes out to Mrs. Cissy Houston in the tragic loss of not just her legendary daughter, Whitney Houston in 2012, but also in losing her grandchild, Bobbi Kristina, just a few years apart. May God give her strength.