When Cissy Houston opened up about pain of outliving daughter Whitney Houston: ‘I wish I could have saved her’

Whitney Houston’s mother Cissy Houston passed away on Monday at her New Jersey home aged 91. Cissy, who was a renowned gospel singer, was in hospice care for Alzheimer’s disease when she died.

During a 2013 interview with PEOPLE about her Remembering Whitney memoir, Cissy touched on her daughter’s unfortunate death, saying at the time that she still wondered if she could have done something to save her life. Whitney tragically passed away at the age of 48 after drowning in a bathtub in February 2012. An autopsy report of her death revealed that heart disease and cocaine use contributed to her demise.

“I think I was a great mother, and I still do wonder if I could have saved her somehow. I think why not. Why wouldn’t I wonder that? I still want her to be here,” Cissy said in the 2013 interview. “Yes, I wish I could have saved her. I’m sorry she had to die alone and in that kind of condition or predicament. It really made me very sad and it hurt me,” she continued.

“Who knows what the course deals, where you are going in life,” Cissy added. “Life is really crazy and funny. You take one path, sometimes that’s good. Another one, sometimes that’s bad. You don’t know. You don’t know until it’s too late. Because you know if I could have saved my daughter in any way, I would have. Any way that I could have helped her.”

Cissy in her memoir also opened up about Whitney’s drug addiction and how it tragically resulted in her passing. The deceased Grammy winner admitted it was “very difficult” to live through her daughter’s predicaments.

“Nobody is born to a woman who says ‘I want my daughter to be a drug addict,'” she said. “I did everything as I could that I thought was the right thing to do. Some kids listen and some people don’t. Most of them don’t, and they run up into something that they can’t handle, and most of the time they don’t talk to their parents about it.”

Just like her mother, Whitney was known for her breathtaking voice and hit songs. The Saving All My Love singer similarly enjoyed a very successful career spanning several decades, selling over 200 million records, including albums, singles, and videos worldwide. With seven albums to her name, Whitney broke several records and, undoubtedly, was an inspiration to up-and-coming female and colored musicians during her prime.

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