When Whitney Houston passed, many of us clutched our chests, if not our heads, with outstretched hands in shock or grief.  People speculated that drugs or alcohol took her.  Some said, “I had a bad feeling,” wondered whether she was murdered or slipped away by suicide.  Others still, as the winds blew, mumbled such spookiness as even the February that took her was odd, too warm.  But the majority angrily blamed Whitney’s history of drug abuse and—by association—oft-persecuted ex-husband Bobby Brown for the loss of life.  And fans, perhaps rightly so, worried for her daughter while pretending the whole blue world doesn’t know where broken hearts go.

A young woman, self-conscious about her thinning hair and oily skin, fights with her boyfriend.  He, of course, is wrong for her, but low self-esteem won’t let her leave.  There is a black woman turning forty and has never been married—and wants to be.  Though she has been polishing and preserving herself, she wonders “What is wrong with me?”  There is a young woman with eyes, sea blue, and gorgeous yellow hair whose fresh scent when she passes lifts heads.  But alas, we are not just hair and eyes.  She wears her sweaters too tight to give the pudginess of her physique a slimmer profile and, though a supervisor, calls off when she breaks up with Beau.

Carson McCullers authored, when barely a woman herself, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.  In her haunting masterpiece, she writes, “The heart knows what it wants.”  Can you imagine if your Bobby Brown or your Kevin Federline was wrenched from your hands, each finger of your hand pulled back one by one until you finally let go?  Before you were ready to stop fighting for him?  Before you were ready to unball your fists?  How sad you would be.  How much sadder would you be with the cold eyes of the entire blue world watching?  And judging.

Whitney and Britney, a warm embrace.

Black orchids and white orchids, like Whitney Houston and Britney Spears, we’re told, are rare—ascribed all sorts of wonderful qualities.  They are primmed and positioned for envy and placed in only the finest of crystal.  Then when set in their fancy “vah-zes” in the center of the room for all to admire, the stewards of what’s good for them say, “Perfect.  Lovely.  Stay as you are.”

A common heart-shaped desire throbs loudly within the souls of some women.  They are fierce creatures of love—will hunt for it anywhere.  Whitney Houston confessed an addiction to Bobby Brown.  Britney Spears so loved Kevin Federline that her heart was undeterred by Shar Jackson’s pregnancy with his second child?  But don’t trip on that.  Shar Jackson was to K-Fed what Hagar was to Abraham; biblically speaking, their relationship was illegitimate, unrighteous, out of order.  Besides, long ago, Britney never looked happier than when filming a special (now known as reality TV) which in essence documented a waxing love for the man who would become her “wasband” and father of her two Brit-brats.

For better or for worse, Whitney promised it.  Britney promised it.  The problem is that the world has made light of the bond that God cements between a man and woman.  Whether stuck with a blackstitch, silly string, a party streamer, or a creeping vine, that bond is strong.  In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, “a threefold cord is not quickly broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12).  So let no man put marriage asunder for their own selfish purposes, saying, “Willow, why weepest thou?  Rarest of flower, rolling in fields of green, he be a parasitic weed.  Let not the weed devour our—nay, I mean, thine green!” 

Matrimonial disentanglement is sticky, prickly business.

Nowadays, listening to Britney Spears pop her pink bubble gum is preferable to hearing her sing it.  Joy is gone from her heart.  The light in her eyes, like sand on a beach, has receded with the many tides of life: Foolish conduct TMZ-ed and canned for freshness.  True love lost—when the world demonizes who you love, do you shave your head in mourning?  And what about the degrading journey from self-rule to court-ordered dependence and carrying the stigma of a mood disorder?  Britney’s eyes seem black with grief, aloof, but most of all, they seem blue.  Even her smile is somehow wilted.  She seems fragile and withdrawn, embalmed with sadness.

With the brokenhearted, drugs and alcohol are symptoms, not the problem.  Only the method of coping is problematic.  Be it at the beginning, middle, or peak of an emotional breakdown, America the Beautiful “solves” all of its issues of the heart artificially.  With sedatives.  A bottle for this.  A blue pill for that.  A scalpel for the other.  Little counseling is taken, spiritual or otherwise.  Or, counseling is taken but not seriously.

Mask with all our might that a botoxed forehead, like an unraised brow, makes us clueless; we all know where broken hearts go.  We’ve seen it in our own lives and in the lives of our beloved Whitney and our bubble gum-sweet Britney.  In some way, shape, or form, if not mended, they die.  Preserved like flowers in paperweights of glass.  No longer reachable.