I did what everyone else did when I got the news that Whitney Houston died Saturday night: I went back to her music. I insisted however on playing her upbeat songs: the Chaka Khan-penned “I’m Every Woman”, the killer Thunderpuss remix of “It’s Not Right but It’s Okay”, and “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)”, which may be Houston’s greatest work.

“I Wanna Dance” has an unrestrained, girlish joy that’s infectious. Its unmistakable ’80s production by frequent Houston collaborator Narada Michael Walden is immaculate, but considering Saturday night’s circumstances it hit my ears as bittersweet. By Sunday morning, I couldn’t avoid it and I had to listen to “I Will Always Love You”. It’s a song played by DJs at virtually every wedding ever, but in my tearful listen, it reminded me of another major life event: a funeral. When Houston sings, “Bittersweet/Memories/That is all I’m taking with me/So good-bye/Please don’t cry,” the lyrics become exponentially more emotional when you imagine them as her last words. Although it originally belonged to Dolly Parton, it will forever be Houston’s.

We don’t say it aloud enough as a culture, but what’s truly powerful about someone’s death isn’t the passing itself, but who and what the person leaves behind. Funerals and wakes, posthumous awards and records for performers, aren’t for the dead, they’re for the living. They are the dead. We are the grief-stricken. Houston left behind an incredible legacy in addition to family, collaborators, and countless admirers. She sold an astounding career total of approximately 170 million units, a count that is surely skyrocketing as you read this, making her one of the best-selling acts of all time, worldwide. The soundtrack to The Bodyguard is one of the top 10 best-selling albums of all time (44 million and counting, at 17x-platinum in the U.S. alone). It’s also the best-selling soundtrack of all-time.

Then there’s her vocal influence. Houston’s combination of influence and talent changed the way singers sing, both male and female, black and white, secular or gospel, et al. She was a giant. She was a powerhouse. In the interest of “bittersweet memories,” here are four of Houston’s most memorable ones. Rest in peace, girl. We will always love you.

1. Her moving rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl (1991)

This is pretty much how everyone could approve of remembering Houston. This performance came mere days after the first Gulf War was waged over 20 years ago, and it’s become the gold standard of National Anthem performances. If Roseanne Barr’s off-key performance a year beforehand was the embarrassing nadir of the hallowed performance tradition, Houston’s was its exact opposite: a rapturous, patriotic apogee.

2. The Moment Where Costner Carries Whitney Out of a Building in The Bodyguard (1992)

In 1992, Houston starred in the international blockbuster The Bodyguard, which grossed approximately $410 million worldwide. The movie also spawned her version of the aforementioned Dolly Parton-penned “I Will Always Love You”, which won the Grammy’s Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal awards. The soundtrack itself won the Grammy for Album of the Year.

If you didn’t consciously live through “I Will Always Love You”/The Bodyguard in ’90s pop culture, it’s hard to get across its distinctly pre-Internet, mono-cultural moment in the context of today’s frantic media de-massification. “I Will Always Love You” was omnipresent in a way that pop songs aren’t anymore. It will forever be the single-most iconic song with which Houston will always be associated. If you thought Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” or Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” were omnipresent in their respective years, their performers and cultural precedent owe everything to Houston circa November 1992, when Houston was the uncontested queen of pop and R&B. The song also set a new, melismatic standard for vocal virtuosity in R&B, reinventing Parton’s more simple, twangy take.

The racial symbolism behind the song and its role in The Bodyguard was not lost on audiences, even if virtually no one spoke up about it, in support or protest. It was maybe the first time in the ’90s, post-Cosby Show/Jungle Fever era, that an interracial couple was portrayed in a blockbuster film – and no one really cared. In other words, it showed progress. The image of Kevin Costner’s titular bodyguard character carrying Houston’s singer character out of a building became an iconic film image of the ’90s. It was also the image of America taking one cultural baby step further in racial unity.

3. “Crack is whack”

It isn’t the way most would like to remember Houston, but it’s been the center of her predominant media presence over the last decade or so. Her drug addiction– some say enabled or kickstarted by her husband, former New Edition “bad boy” Bobby Brown– and subsequent disturbing public appearances became a dark side of her otherwise squeaky-clean image.

Houston admitted to taking cocaine, marijuana, and pills, but not crack cocaine, as she emphasized in an infamous 2002 interview with Diane Sawyer. “Crack is whack,” Houston snapped. That infamous sentence became ripe for parody quickly after its airing: some of it was mean-spirited, some of it desperately trying to turn the tragedy of Houston’s downfall inside out into dark comedy. Both miss the point illustrated by Houston’s substance abuse, rehabilitation, failed comeback (2009′s I Turn to You and subsequent touring), and Saturday night’s death: it’s all incredibly sad.

It’s hard not to think of Amy Winehouse’s death last July. Winehouse’s image from the get go was almost entirely grounded in the idea of a self-destructive, Janis Joplin-like diva. Within five years of her breakthrough, Winehouse joined the 27 Club, dying at the fabled, self-destructive rock star age.

But Houston, dead at 48, lived almost twice that long, and (this is what’s particularly heartbreaking) she started with a sweet, girlish persona. She didn’t revel in self-destruction; she was the girl that wanted to dance with somebody, who believed that the children are our future. Later on, she became the fierce, no-man’s-gonna-get-me-down performer. On “It’s Not Right but It’s Okay”, she seemed like the logical evolution of Gloria Gaynor for the ’90s house sound, as every song of hers echoed the sentiments within “I Will Survive.”

She didn’t. The confirmation of why and how will come. What’s certain is that her voice, one of the greatest in R&B and pop history, will live on. What Houston and Winehouse will both be known for in pop history, aside from their voices, is their roles as cautionary tales: too beautiful and self-destructive to live, but too talented to ever be forgotten.

4. Jennifer Hudson singing “I Will Always Love You” at the 54th Grammy Awards

During a night of awkward introductions and segues, celebrity mawkishness, and over-the-top, Vegas-like performance spectacles, singer Jennifer Hudson paid tribute to Houston simply and elegantly. Hudson eschewed her normal over-singing for an almost note-for-note tribute to Houston with her rendition of “I Will Always Love You”. Hudson was one of the few singers that night who sang with little to no accompaniment.

The last-minute scrambling that show planners must have had to make to plan such a performance likely suited its simplicity. Had Grammy producers and crew been given more time to plan a more elaborate, star-studded tribute, they likely would have done it; that’s kind of the Grammy way. But the darkness and single spotlight on Hudson, wearing a black, elegant dress, doubled as awards show couture and funeral garb. It was deeply sad, incredibly glamorous, and – aside from Adele’s category domination of the evening – the best moment of the night: a fitting, moving, and tear-jerking tribute.