I sit here tonight stunned at the news of Whitney Houston's death.  When I think about it for too long, I find myself balling up inside and fighting back tears.  But why?  It's obvious that Whitney and I weren't friends.  Heck, I had never even seen her in concert.  I wasn't the biggest Whitney Houston fan either, though I admit to owning almost every record she ever made.

So why has the news of her passing affected me so?  Once I thought about it, I discovered that many of my best childhood memories were made to her music.  I can vividly recall singing into my favorite hairbrush songs like "How Will I Know?" and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody", while wearing a long towel on my head and dancing in front of the mirror.  I can remember my best friend and I trying oh-so-hard to mimic her awe-inspiring voice on songs like, "Saving All My Love for You" and "I'm Your Baby Tonight" while giggling uncontrollably when our voices would crack with the high notes.  Whitney's music was also there at my Jr. High graduation ceremony when our entire class decided to sing "The Greatest Love of All" as our class song.

Whitney Houston and her music has touched my life through love and heartache.  I've cried my eyes out to "I Will Always Love You" when teen love didn't go the way that it should have, and I can still remember vividly sitting on the living room floor and crying to a beautiful live performance of my favorite song, "I Have Nothing".  Whitney is the most talented female singer I've ever had the privilege of listening to and I've since come to realize that her songs were actually a soundtrack to my childhood.

Although her life was filled with tragedy, which truly breaks my heart, it touched so many others through the beauty and pureness of her voice.  She sang with such emotion that made you believe emphatically in every word she said, and for that, I will miss her so.  It is with a heavy heart that I leave you with a classic live performance of my favorite Whitney Houston song, "I Have Nothing".