A Song for You

by Robyn Crawford

  “How was she holding up out there? What was her state of mind?” I asked.

  He told me a story from the tour: He had gone out for something to eat and when he returned to the hotel, Donna and Pat, Gary’s wife, were in the lobby and told him that Whitney was upset and he needed to go talk to her. Though Baker was hesitant, they made such a big deal about it that he ignored his instinct and went to her room. When he got there, Whitney let him know how disappointed she was by his coming to talk about the show. She asked him, “Whose side are you on?”

  I asked him why he thought she asked that and he replied, “She didn’t know who to turn to.”

  I had held on to my Rolodex from my Nippy days and called CeCe Winans. We talked about Whitney and the last time she’d seen and spoken to her. CeCe shared a painful story about being called to Whitney’s Atlanta home. When she got there, she found her balled up on the floor in the center of the living room. When she kneeled down and put her arms around Whit’s body, she felt like skin and bones. She told her that if she kept on doing that stuff, she was going to kill herself. Eventually, CeCe was able to convince Whitney to return to her Nashville home with her, where she fattened her up a bit and had Bible study, and where Nip prayed for forgiveness for her family. But after a few weeks, Bobby came and took his wife back to Atlanta.

  After Whitney and Bobby divorced, CeCe made another visit, but this time to the California rehab facility that Whitney had entered. She arrived at a house that felt to her more like a women’s social club than a center for healing. CeCe looked around and said, “This is rehab?”

  In the post–Nippy Inc. years, I’d occasionally dial Whitney’s in-house publicist, Lynne Volkman, to try to get answers: after Nip’s disastrous Diane Sawyer interview, when Nip passed, and the day I heard Bobbi Kristina was rushed to the hospital. In the early days Gene Harvey had snatched Lynne from Arista Records’ publicity department and we all worked together for years. Lynne was an important player on our team because she knew the inner workings of the Arista machine.

  I can’t lie, I did hear Krissi’s cries. After her mother was gone, there were people both in the business and outside of it who reached out on Facebook to ask if I was in touch with her or knew how to contact her. I wasn’t and didn’t, and I expected that trying to get to her by phone would be an ordeal. She was living in Atlanta surrounded by people who were unlikely to welcome my influence. Mainly, I wanted her to know I was there for her, that her mother would have wanted me to look out for her, too, and that I was ready and willing to help. That I would be willing to come down to Georgia, pack her up, and give her a place of refuge in my New Jersey home if she would let me.

  I contacted Tommy Brown’s ex-wife Carolyn, who lived in Atlanta, to ask if she had seen Krissi and, if so, how she was doing. Carolyn hadn’t seen her in a while but also had heard that she wasn’t doing well. I tried my godson, Gary, Michael’s son, but he said that he couldn’t get to her, either. Meanwhile, Silvia was having a recurring nightmare in which Nip’s daughter was in trouble. Miki Howard, a singer I hadn’t seen in years, tracked me down to say that she’d been having similar dreams and wanted to know if there was anything I could do.

  I asked Nicole David to give Kristina my number and email, with a message to call me if she wanted to talk. I also wanted her to explain why anyone had thought it was a good idea for Whitney to go out on that last disastrous tour when clearly, she was in no shape to do so.

  Nicole answered, “Because Whitney and her daughter would have been out on the street if she hadn’t.”

  “Is that what you all were telling her?” I snapped.

  When the news reported that Whitney’s daughter was found facedown in a bathtub and rushed to a Georgia hospital, I called Lynne. She told me that earlier that week Pat had called to ask her to find a rehab facility for Bobbi Kris. What had prompted the call, Lynne said, was Krissi’s showing up at Pat’s front door, mouth bleeding, teeth missing, the hood of her car smashed in.

  I don’t know what or how much Whitney told her daughter about us. I don’t know if she shared what life was like when we were inseparable, before fame took everything over. I hope she told her how tight we were, that I would do anything for her mother. It haunts me that I have no way of knowing. At the 2012 Billboard Music Awards show, Krissi said something that continues to disturb me. She accepted a posthumous honor for her mother saying, “I really just wanna say thank you to everyone that’s supported us through it all. Not just from when it was good, but when it was bad, too.”

  “Did someone tell her to say that?” I wondered. “And to whom is she talking?”

  Years later, while I was writing this book, I felt the need to try to find Dr. Richard Frances, the head doctor I’d met with at the Silver Hill rehab facility. He was no longer there, but I found him and called his practice in Manhattan. I left a message, giving my name and saying that I’d come to see him some time ago with a well-known celebrity’s father and that I would love to speak with him. He returned my call and said, “It took thirty seconds for me to remember you. Of course I remember. Who wouldn’t?”

  I took the train to the city for my meeting with Dr. Frances. I headed to the east side and then decided to walk the forty blocks uptown to his office on East Eighty-Sixth Street. I used the time to relax my mind and think about what I wanted to ask him. Still, I arrived with time to spare. As I stood on the corner waiting for the light to change, I spotted an old-fashioned pharmacy, and decided to pop in for some for breath mints. A feeling of déjà vu washed over me, and soon I realized why: There were all sorts of cough drops, soothing throat sprays, and a seemingly unlimited selection of lozenges—a singer’s candy store! Nippy and I had been there, in that very space, buying boxes and boxes of Luden’s Honey Licorice cough drops along with a tin box of Pastilles. I bought some for myself, and headed out to see Dr. Frances, now confident that I was exactly where I needed to be and would learn what I needed to know.

  When the time came, I went into his office and we talked about that day. He said that at the time we first met, I seemed to believe that Whitney’s husband was not good for her and that her brothers were also heavily into drugs and needed help.

  Then he asked, “Were you aware that she called me?” He went on to say that Whitney had called and asked him to come get her. He told her that was not how they did things and offered to send an ambulance. She said no, that she would get a ride there. But she never made it. He didn’t recall the exact year but said it was the early 2000s, after 9/11. I had spoken to Whitney around that time and read her parts of the letter I never mailed. I told her that it’s really not that hard if she would just stop looking at the mountain and start climbing it. I offered to make the climb with her.

  “Maybe I should have gone to get her,” Dr. Frances said. “Addiction is tough and she was surrounded, and that made it even more difficult for her to help herself. Look at how many people died last year. Over seventy thousand. If Whitney did get the help she needed, imagine how many lives she could have saved. We cry every day.”

  Epilogue

  The first eight years of our life as a family were spent living in the stucco farmhouse in the country, listening to the soothing sound of water running over rocks in the creek bordering two sides of the yard. Lisa and I wanted our children, Gillian and Jeremy, to have a peaceful start to life, to be able to run out their back door and explore in the woods, to catch salamanders, barefoot and naked in the stream. Their upbringing has been very different from my own. Our yard was home to groundhogs, deer, foxes, snapping turtles, wild turkeys, and blue herons. In early 2010 we decided that after all it required to build our family, it didn’t make sense for neither of us to be present when the babies did all their “firsts.” So, as unlikely as this once might have seemed, I became a full-time mother. I don’t know why I thought that having children meant sharing your life, because those twins ran every moment of each day and every
part of my entire world from dawn to dark with only the briefest reprieve at nap time. It was best for the three of us to get out of the house and I felt it would be good for them—even at that young age—to experience all kinds of parks and the different children who played there. So not only did we go to our local playgrounds, I drove us to parks all over Jersey and Pennsylvania and then to the biggie, Central Park, where they interacted with kids of all colors, speaking a multitude of languages. I had those chickens out of their Caboose stroller at two years old. I’d bring them to the city and we’d ride the subways and walk three-across-the-sidewalk holding hands until we could pick Mama up from work and go home together. Lisa thought I was nuts, but our children have some serious walking stamina!

  Their early education was Montessori style: focused on nature, play, books, and art. I expose them to all genres of music, hoping it will bring them the same joy it does me. We want them to travel widely and experience the world and other cultures. We hope to bring them to Africa, Japan, South America, and all the other places I saw after Whitney said, “Stick with me, and I’ll take you around the world.”

  Occasionally people would see us together and say, “I bet you can’t even remember what life was like without them.” I smile, but not in agreement. Of course I remember. I’ve been blessed with two big lives.

  As the children grew, the time came for me to focus on myself again. I decided to become a trainer. I missed caring for my body the way I had as an athlete, and sensed that I could inspire others to do the same. I had spent the last six years focused on my kids, and it was time to get back in the game. I got myself as strong and fit as I had once been. Then I began studying, and in 2015 I earned my certification from the National Academy of Sports Medicine. I landed a position at the Solebury Club, an upscale sports club set in a renovated schoolhouse. My training partner, Colin Kirts, taught me that the key to being a great trainer is the ability to be creative and practice. I continually educate myself, taking classes that allow me to understand more about the brain and how we use it to command the body. I believe that we are all athletes. Some are just elite.

  Today we live in a diverse, like-minded community that we love. The four of us hike, bike, skate, and take long family walks together. We have weekly movie nights and evenings where we play all sorts of board games. I taught them Uno, Nip’s favorite. We cook together. We’re into road trips, especially our annual summer vacation in Maine. My son shares my love of basketball, and although he doesn’t know it yet, he is an exceptional pitcher. My daughter is a powerful swimmer and aspires to be a singer.

  I cannot put into words just how grateful I am to Lisa, Jeremy, and Gillian for allowing me to detach myself from the present in order to relive the past and share my story. I hope the friendship, respect, and love Lisa and I have for each other has set the bar high for our children. I want them to have an understanding of death, too: We are given only one body in which to live this life. Nothing good ever comes out of drugs. Kindness and empathy are important, but there is a difference between being selfish and being for self. I want them to approach every day happy. To know that true friendship is everlasting. Above all, I want my children to know that there’s only one you. People may try to tear you down, stuff you into a box, and slap on labels. They may make up stories and try to own you. But it’s your call. You can sing solo, or you can blend; you can grab the spotlight, or you can work the background. The power isn’t in one or the other, it’s in the deciding. It’s in the choosing and the pursuit. It’s you and your dream. With the release of this book, I hope there will be no more questions. And that I have honored Whitney, Kristina, Marty, and Mom.

  Family night out in NYC, 1971: Marty, Mom, Bina, and me.

  All photographs courtesy the author unless otherwise noted.

  My father running hurdles at Ironbound Stadium, East Side High School.

  1978: Clifford J. Scott High School vs. rival East Orange High School girls basketball game. Me (#22) and Janice Walker.

  The Greatest Love World Tour, 1986, in Italy at the Vatican: Nip and me.

  Backstage at the Moment of Truth Tour in 1987: Whitney, Silvia, and me.

  Whitney and me on a yacht in 1987, during a tour break in Australia.

  Mendham house party in late 1987. Left to right: Houston family friends unknown, myself, John, and Wade.

  John Simmons, Whitney, and me at Disney World, 1989.

  Awaiting the bullet train in Japan on the Feel So Right Tour, 1990:

  Back row, standing left to right: Tony Bulluck (tour manager), Shozo Katsuta (Kyoto promoter), Bashiri Johnson (percussion), Ray Fuller (guitar), Bette Sussman (keys), Rickey Minor (bass). Middle row, standing: Silvia Vejar (personal assistant), Michael Houston, me, Wayne Lidsey (keys), Whitney, Kirk Whalum (sax) (bending down), Billy Baker (background vocalist), David Roberts (security).

  Front row, kneeling: Troy Burgess (dancer), Wade Perry (tour accountant).

  Aruba, 1990: Whitney befriended a stray, who waited for her on the beach near the hotel. She brought food from her room for the dog every day.

  Me and Nip on the beach in Aruba.

  On the Bodyguard set in 1991. Whitney, wearing her “Queen of the Night” floor-length coat, stops production to sing “Happy Birthday” to me.

  Marty, captured by Marc Bryan-Brown in 1991. He’s sitting on the patio steps of Whitney’s house, unaware that his photo was taken.

  Marc Bryan-Brown

  Whitney’s bridal shower, 1992: Robina, my cousin Dollie, me, mom, and Whitney.

  Another bridal shower photo. Back row, standing left to right: Michelle, Whit, and me. Second row: Regina, Silvia, CeCe, Nip’s cousin Michelle Drinkard, Donna, and Perri. Seated: Whitney’s aunt Marion Houston and two cousins Jill and Sharon Houston, Carol Brown, Cissy, LaLa, Aunt Bae, and Monique.

  Kneeling: Rose, Laurie, and Maria.

  Attending a Vegas show in 1992: Tiawana Rawls, Khandi Alexander, David, Silvia, Whitney, Anne Blanchard (security), Ellin, me, Bette, Carol, and Luca Tommassini.

  Nip and me playing Ping-Pong doubles on the I’m Your Baby Tonight Tour, 1993.

  Dana Lixenberg agreed to photograph Robina, Mom, and me at our home in 1994. Our last family portrait together.

  © Dana Lixenberg, 1994

  My credentials on tour in 1994.

  Me, holding Bobbi Kristina in a Polaroid given to me from the Ebony cover shoot in Mendham, 1995.

  One day in 1997, after she sang me a song, I asked Krissi for her autograph.

  My laminate from the 1999 Academy Awards rehearsal.

  Lisa and me in Croton-on-Hudson, 2019.

  Annual two-week vacation in Blue Hill, Maine, on the ferris wheel at the Blue Hill Fair, 2016.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank:

  Jill Schwartzman, who believed in me and the value of my story. Thank you for all your encouragement, patience, and guidance.

  David Kuhn, for responding immediately and then asking and saying all the right things. Thank you for protecting me, my family, and Whitney.

  Kate Mack, for kindly being there throughout the entire process and powering me forward.

  Retha Powers, for allowing me to be open and vulnerable as I talked and talked. I was comfortable telling you my story, and I am grateful for the time we spent and what we accomplished. I could not have done this with anyone else.

  Marya Pasciuto, for all your hard work and for keeping me on track.

  Becky Sweren, for your sharp questions, sensitivity, and support in the early days.

  Lisa, my nighttime editor and calming voice of reason.

  Silvia Vejar, I’m so grateful I recognized your value. Thank you for your deep loyalty, strength
, and all the love and tenderness you showed Nip. It pains me to think how much she missed you.

  Raynelle Swilling, for putting up with me always and for being there whenever I need you.

  Ian Beraunovich, my brother, I can’t go to the corner without you.

  Khandi Alexander, for extending your friendship to me and Nip. If only there were more time . . .

  Michelle Zakee, you know the meaning of true friendship.

  Stephen Kirklys, for sharing your extraordinary talent each time we asked, and to Scott Beauchemin for your honest and valued opinions.

  Vanessa Brinson, for loving Marty for who he was and for helping me get to know and understand him better.

  Anne and Andy Fredericks, for loving us so much.

  Usha Gilmore, for keeping my music up to date and me laughing hard!

  Tara and Erin, our love for you is infinite.

  My family—Mama Glass, Kenny, Derrick, Robert, Joyce, Dollie, Larry, Genie, Joey, Roy, Kyle, Kevin, Kent, and Gayle: All my love.