Farewell Whitney....

On Sunday morning the first thing I did when I woke, as always, was to check twitter. I scrolled through a few tweets and noticed the name 'Whitney' appear a few times. She had died. Surely not? I then searched for a news website in the hope it was yet another twitter death hoax but it was sadly not to be.


Another part of my childhood gone. I couldn't believe it. Nothing was confirmed about the cause of death, just that she'd been found in the bath in her hotel room hours before a pre-Grammy's party. It was very sad news.

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I have very fond memories of receiving 'Whitney' on cassette as a gift when I was in hospital as a young child. I'm surprised I didn't wear the tape out as it was played constantly on my Walkman. You know, the big clunky machine with bright orange foam headphones where you couldn't just skip a track you had to forward wind it and hope you stopped in the right place?? Those were the days.....!


Anyway, I digress.....As the day went on I became angry at tweets and facebook statuses relating to Whitney. Many were saying that we shouldn't mourn her because she 'was a druggie', 'it was her own fault', 'she could have stopped', 'we shouldn't feel sorry for her as it was inevitable' and so on.


Yes, she was an addict but that's as much as I and many others know. Maybe it was inevitable but that doesn't make it any less sad.


Why did these strangers feel qualified to comment on something they knew nothing about? It hadn't been confirmed as a drug related death yet these people felt that we should have no compassion because it was known she took drugs. So what? Clearly these people have never known an addict in their lives and I hope they never have to.


I certainly don't expect a worldwide outpouring of grief but is it too much to ask to have a little compassion for those left behind, especially her 18 year old daughter who is now without her mother?


RIP Whitney