Bobbi Kristina: A Tragic Reminder of the Real Victims of Domestic Abuse

“Sometimes, I swear to you, it feels like nothing is going my way. Then I look at my little girl and know that she needs me for me and not anything else. That makes me wanna live on so much harder, 'cause I can’t stand to think the world would teach her something I wouldn’t teach her. That makes me live, baby.” — Out, May 2000 ~Whitney Houston

What leads us to choose the people who surrounds us? Is it an endless aching need for connection

Violence is learned.

that drives us to make a foolish choice at any cost to our physical or emotional well-being once we have tasted the way even the most toxic of people fill that void for us? Is it learned from our families of origin?. Our children lean what they live. It's a fact proven time and time again in countless studies, children who grow up in homes with domestic violence will most likely go on to be victims or perpetrators of domestic violence as teenagers and adults. We convince ourselves that as long as we are fighting back, it isn't abuse, as long as we are fighting back it is somehow not the same thing, that we are not victims, but we are. In our rationalizations and attempts at holding it together which we somehow convince ourselves is better for the children, we lose sight of the legacy that we are leaving for them.

Bobbi Kristina Brown, died Sunday, July 26, 2015 at the age of 22 after battling for her life in what may very well be a result of that legacy that her parents unwittingly created. The marriage of her parents, Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, was epic. We were enthralled by the depth of their love and the tales of their excesses. We were appalled by the episodes of  domestic violence and drug abuse but what could we do about it, watching from the side lines as we were? We were fans not family. Even if we were family, you can't run an intervention on someone who doesn't want to be intervened with. Under the glitz and the glamour and the woe, who was the most tragic victim of their tumultuous love story? Bobbi Kristina.

There is speculation that her death was of a suspicious nature. The fingers are pointing to her live-in boyfriend, Nick Gordon.  In a recent article released by eonline.com, Bobbi's close friend, Alex Reid discloses details of the ordeal that Bobbi Kristina endured with Nick and his behavior since her hospitalization hasn't exactly portrayed that of a mourning boyfriend. How did a beautiful, vivacious young woman from a celebrity family end up under the control of someone who is beginning to sound like a monster? It's a pretty simple answer if you ask me.

Mom and Dad were often battling, estranged, wrapped up in battling drug addiction. I'm sure the worst of their domestic violence issues were kept from the headlines. It's always our children who pay for our vices and poor choices in the end. None of us is perfect, but we should always be mindful of the environment we create for our children. One day they just might grow up to live it. Whitney Houston was America's sweetheart and Bobby Brown the bad boy we all loved to hate, the tendency is to feel badly for them, and I do. The point in my writing is not to vilify Bobby Brown in any way, because perhaps he was at some point in his life a victim to living under the same circumstances. However I hope that in our sympathy and our empathy we don't lose sight of how this tragedy could have been averted at some point in the past by either of her parents choosing something healthy for their relationship or for themselves as individuals so that we have the opportunity to apply it's un-exercised solutions in our own lives. My thoughts and condolences go out to the family of Bobbi Kristina. Stay strong, this tragedy hasn't ended just yet, not by a long shot.