Читать книгу Remembering Whitney: A Mother’s Story of Love, Loss and the Night the Music Died - Cissy Houston - Страница 6

I’ve known Cissy Houston my whole life. She’s my aunt—her sister Lee is my mother—but because we’re only seven years apart, she felt more like an older sister to me.

When I was growing up, Cissy even lived with us for a while in East Orange, so I got to know her pretty well. I can still hear her voice, telling my sister Dee Dee and me, “I am older, and you are going to do as I say.” She might have felt like an older sister to us, but she never let us forget she was our aunt. She was a strong young woman then, and she is a strong, loving woman now.

From the time we were children, we all sang together at St. Luke’s A.M.E. Church in Newark, where my grandfather was the minister. Later, when he moved away, we all joined New Hope Baptist Church. My sister Dee Dee and I sang in the junior choir there, and Cissy rehearsed us and arranged songs for us. Music was always in our family’s blood. But there were two things even more important to us than music: family and faith.

When she started having children, Cissy became very mother-oriented. Her kids were primary in her life—she had to be with her babies. There was a great deal of love in their house. And we all loved her children, Gary, Michael, and Nippy.

When Cissy’s kids were small, I used to like to bring them out on the road with me. By that time, I had a solo career and was touring all over the world, so during the summers, when they weren’t in school, I’d bring them out to join me. They were just regular little kids on summer vacation, but they did learn how to use room service very, very quickly. It was all I could do to keep those children from ordering everything in the world up to the room.

Nippy used to talk with me about her mother, just the usual kids’ stuff of “Why won’t she let me do this?” and “How come the other kids get to do that?” But later on, she came to realize why her mother did the things she did. We all were brought up in the same way—it was instilled in us to respect our elders, to love God, and to walk the straight and narrow. And that’s what Cissy tried to teach her own children, too.

Cissy has always wanted the best for everyone in her family. She’s always giving encouragement and support, and she’s tried on many occasions to give advice. Whenever she saw something that wasn’t sitting too well with her, she’d speak up. As I did. In our family, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

But while Cissy was strong and loving, Nippy was always a little girl, even during her womanhood. Yes, she was ambitious, and she had a silent strength. But I’m not sure it was ever really tapped into. We all know of Nippy’s beauty and her amazing vocal skills. But in Cissy’s book, you will learn about the little girl behind all that.

It’s a privilege to have a peek inside someone’s life, and that’s what Cissy is offering in this book. The truth has always been paramount for Cissy, and I believe she has given the truth within these pages. The fact that she found the strength to write it now, given the grief she has suffered, is a testament to her faith: she is being led to share her true feelings about herself and her beloved daughter.

I hope all of us can take a lesson or two from it, and that with this book, everyone can read about and understand who Whitney Houston truly was.

Dionne Warwick

November 2012