Farewell to Whitney Houston (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | As "Good Morning America" reported late Saturday, Whitney Houston, 48, has died. For me, it feels like the end of a fairy tale.

Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted a Disney princess I could call my own. Sure, I loved "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Little Mermaid" as much as anybody else, but I longed for a princess that looked like me, with braids and rich cocoa skin just like my own. At the beginning of 1997, I was a fifth grader still looking for a fairy tale to come true. By the fall of 1997, I had seen this dream become reality before my 11-year-old eyes. And it was all thanks to Whitney Houston.

When Houston produced the 1997 remake of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella," it was everything I could have ever wished for. Here I had Brandy as a princess, Whoopi Goldberg as a queen, and Houston as the fairy godmother. Though The New York Times suggested the "racial utopia" of the film's fairy tale world "[emphasized] its distance from reality," in the eyes of a child, it made anything possible. And when Houston sang loud and clear, "There is music in you," I felt like I could be anything I wanted to be.

It's now nearly 15 years later, and the voice of the woman who assured me love would be a song I would sing my whole life through has been silenced. I will never forget the beauty she brought into the world, nor will I ever let the music she helped imprint on my heart stop playing.

Whitney Houston was a musical icon whose legacy will live on as long as there is a song to sing, either on the airwaves or with our heartstrings. Even though she is gone, her song is still living. Her fans are still playing the music she put in our hearts. Children learned they were the future. One generation learned the power of simple words like "I will always love you," while another learned that whatever you want to do, "You will when you believe." I will never forget the gift Whitney Houston gave to me, and the world, through her songs and her magical, powerful voice.

Thank you, Fairy Godmother. It's been a ball.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120212/en_ac/10955444_farewell_to_whitney_houston

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