Honoring the Late Whitney Houston (a little too late)

Whitney Houston was a world class performer and her death was a tragedy, but she wasn't on my mind until Midnight last night, when I read of her passing on the Google news feed. I was at first shocked to see this, as she was quite young to be passing in this day and age. What's most shocking is that the second thought in my mind was that she overdosed on illegal drugs. I can't imagine that I was the only person who thought this.

About 30 minutes ago I was listening to 1010 Winds News. Residents of Whitney's old neighborhood in NJ were being interviewed about her passing. Many offered their thoughts and prayers to her and her family. In conclusion, many said that Whitney Houston's death was a loss to the community.

It's no secret that Whitney Houston was severly addicted to drugs for the past decade or so.

The question I have is: Where was the community's thoughts and prayers when she was alive and in desperate need of them? I don't think anyone in the community gave her a second thought in the past 5 years.

My next question: Who was Whitney Houston before she was a loss to the community? I think she was more of an embarrasment to the community for the last few years. When the media started reporting on Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown's drug problems, I don't think many of her old neighbors were that proud she was from their community.

I know alot of this sounds cold hearted, and i'm not trying to demonize her old community. This seems to be a very common problem. In this, I did realize something; Why don't we honor the people we care about while they're still alive? Why do we wait to honor them until they're gone? It seems that we cherish anyone that passes away, no matter what we thought about them when they were with us.

The moral of the story is that we need to start appreciating the people we love, care about and think highly of. When someone's struggling and in pain, instead of getting on Twitter and bashing them, why don't we express how dear they are to us. Encourage them. Uplift them. Couldn't all of us use that from time to time?

We don't need expressions of love when we're gone. We need them now.

Patrick
www.apostle.com