Thoughts on the Day Whitney Houston Died, Tilly Went Missing, and Another Reason Why It’s Bigger Than Too Short

I have other things to write today. To write this week. I got most of them done, but the words that follow won’t go away. I am deeply saddened by the death of Whitney Houston in ways that are surprising to me. I have wept several times this week with deep sorrow for her death. I like Whitney Houston. I know her songs. How could you not? But I was never a deep fan. I have not been to her concerts. Yet, I am still sad.

The day Whitney Houston died was one of the coldest days of one of the warmest winters. My son and I awoke to a broken thermostat. The second time this winter, but it was too was too cold to wait for the repairman. My mind started going through scenarios for our temporary evacuation. Who could we call? Where could we go? I looked out the window and I saw our refuge. My friends Kate and Kathi, now Aunt Kaki and not Aunt Kaki, live directly across the street. With one phone call, we were in front of a fireplace. I had the Sunday New York Times and a cup of hot tea as my son played with trains on the floor. This house has often been a safe haven for us with out the creep of cold from a failed furnace. When I was tired, when James asked, sitting on the porch for pie, just cause I knew Kate was in her garden, I sought shelter at that address.

When we arrived, I could see worry on the face of a friend who reassured us we were welcome even as her eyes shown with concern. Near tears, she said Tilly had not been home in almost two days. Tilly, named for the rototiller where she was found him, is Kate’s barely domesticated cat. He is mostly skiddish with human beings but he is faithful to Kate. I am not a pet person. I am severely allergic to cats. Dogs left my mothers house sharply on my father’s heals. I have learned the love of pets mostly in my interactions with friends as an adult. I now understand the constancy and companionship of an animal who spends their days and nights with you. Already gripped with sadness for this human black woman lost too early, I wasn’t sure I could also deal with loss of Tilly. We—Kate, my boy, and I—moved around each other in her house where I often find myself at home with intermittent conversation, a short nap for baby, and the warmth of the fire.

For some the recounting the death of this famously talented woman alongside a missing cat might seem disrespectful. But sitting their worried for my friend, I began trying to map the path that led me to such strong feelings for this woman I did not know.

Whitney Houston is part of the soundtrack of my life. A soundtrack mostly dominated by hip hop, but the pounding rhythms could not quiet the power of her voice. The breadth and timber of her voice also reflects my path from the nurturing incubator of black religious life to finding our way in the predominantly white world of our professions despite the loving connection our work showed to that first important community. Her voice. Her voice. Her voice was not post-racial nor did it transcend race. Her voice was the gospel and the blues temporarily housed in pop songs. It was a constant companion. It was always available and at times of repeat. Whitney Houston’s voice was also a refuge.

Music for black people has been a place of shelter, resistance, comfort, community, pleasure and pain. A deep love for music is not biological to African Americans. It is nurtured at our mother’s breast. I have tried to pass this defining part of my heritage to my own child. The first song I sang to my baby fresh from my womb was LaDiDadi and the second was Amazing Grace Shall Always Be My Song of Praise. Yes, Jesus Loves Me. Precious Lord. I sing my son the songs of my mothers mothers mothers because late in the midnight hour when I have needed someone or something and neither was to be found I sung myself into the morning. I mingle in some songs of my own times, but what I want him to get is the power of his own tune to cover him when times are bad and elevate the pleasure in times of good. At some point in my life at each of these times, Whitney was with me, like Tilly was with Kate. Tilly came back, but Whitney is still gone.

I have been intentionally seeding my son’s ear with songs of my life because I also am wary that the music he will hear once my arms are no longer a shelter will work against all the right and good I try to teach him. This week has also been a time of contentious debate about the comments of the rapper Too Short in an interview in XXL magazine. My friend Sarafina has said it all on that subject in the previous post, but as I think about the meaning of music and the passing of this woman, I am again reminded that it is indeed bigger than Too Short.