I wish that I had been blessed to tell this story to the late great Whitney Houston, but I have been blessed with an amazing blog with an amazing readership who wouldn’t mind me speaking on my personal life for a few minutes.

Mrs. Houston,

When ‘I will always love you’ came out, I thought it was thee most beautiful song I had ever heard. I played it 24/7! Back then I had a walkman and I was transitioning to a newer one, so I gave the old one to my Mom. My Mom was battling alcoholism at the time and I gave her everything I could to stop her from drinking. I was a kid who loved his Momma. She took the Walkman and I gave her a single cassette. Whitney Houston’s ‘I will always love you’. Cause she LOVED her some Whitney … She played that song just as much as I did, because when she heard it, she thought of me. One day she was walking home in the rain. No umbrella. A severe down pour with the walkman blasting ‘I will Always Love you’ in her ear. She stood in front of our old house on Greene Avenue for about an hour, just listening to that song on repeat. Drenched. Listening. Crying. The next day my Mom entered an alcohol rehabilitation in-patient program. She’s been sober every since. That was 1993. Music is a powerful tool. And Whitney was an angel who God used to help my Mom break her addiction.

I don’t know where my Mom would be right now if it were not for that moment and this song.

I’ll will sincerely always love the angel that was Whitney Houston.

I love you Whitney.

RIP

-Rae Holliday