Editor’s note: Veteran national music observer Rex Rutkoski has covered and chronicled the lives and deaths of artists from an array of genres through the decades – from Elvis Presley to today. He offers this reflection on the loss of the latest member of the musical community.

In the film “The Bodyguard” Kevin Costner’s character is hired to save Whitney Houston from a crazed fan.

In real life it appears that Houston, one of the voices of her generation, was unable to be saved from herself.

There will be a time, perhaps, when we can make more “sense,” summon more reasoned perspective, to help us better understand what now just seems, in Houston’s passing Feb. 11, like yet another tragic, senseless loss.

Or, maybe not.

Listen closely:

Did the impassioned voices of Janis, who so plaintively offered us a piece of her heart, and Jimi, his guitar blistering into our deepest places, and Jim, the once and only Lizard King who sought solace riding into his own storm, give us any real answers to their deaths so many decades ago?

Do those who leave us now – Amy Winehouse, famously among them -- do any better?

Does each sad, useless departure offer anything more than yet another cautionary tale in a seemingly endless stream of those stories?

We each, of course, have to answer that for ourselves.

And then, maybe, just maybe, we can get on with the business of dealing with the greatest loss of all – the realization that yet another candle has been forever extinguished of its creative spark, that we no more will be enriched by its fresh artistry.

For now, the pain can be almost tangible.

It’s everywhere, though it is not necessary to go any further than Whitney’s official Web site to be consumed by it, to feel it with a depth that goes to the core, to know, really know, it is real.

“You are finally free…fly,” writes Terencia Coward-Thompson on it.

“Whitney felt like a mother to me and I never even met her,” adds Brice Gibson of Forestville, Md.

“I still can’t believe she is gone. She is and she’ll always be he best singer of all time,” says Gabiella Dias of Brazil.

“Why does it seem that fame, especially the really blessed and talented, costs so many so much,” asks Steve Wunch of Wilton Manors. Fla. “What is it about the ‘machine’ that takes such a toll on the soul, mind, body and spirit of those who simply want to share their gifts with the world?”

What is it, indeed! Why must so many in possession of that gift pay the ultimate price?

We haven’t found that answer yet from Janis or Jimi or Jim. And from Amy, poor Amy, it’s all still too fresh.

So, will we find it from Whitney? Do we need to find it from Whitney?

Should we look instead to music’s real power – a beautiful legacy of song, says Wunch, “that will live on and on” in Whitney Houston. “If we listen hard enough, we can still hear your beautiful voice..and will again, someday,” he writes.

Another fan, Sharon Zagame, adds her heartfelt reaction. “We may not have known each other, but your music has always been a source of comfort and strength to me and so I felt like I have lost my best friend,” she writes. “I can’t believe you are no longer here. You went through so much with me in my life that I really feel like a part of me has left with you. The world feels different somehow without you in it.”

Is that not Whitney Houston’s legacy, then, or any great artist’s – helping us feel connected to someone, helping us feel less alone, through his or her music?

And is that not a reminder, as a musician once suggested, that a soul really can live on even after its body, the vessel in which it was nurtured, is gone? It is proven each time we listen to a great performance again, even by an artist long gone from this earth.

What does a soul sound like? Just listen to Janis or Jimi or Jim or Amy. Just listen to Whitney. That soul will always be here.

John Legend confirms that sentiment. “The beautiful thing about music is it never dies,” he tells Rolling Stone. “We’ll always have Whitney because we’ll always have her beautiful music.”

There is so much pain mixed with the joy of that truth – the sadness that there could have been so much more, that the world continued to be hers for the taking, if only she would have, could have let the real “her” emerge again.

Throughout her relatively brief but shining career she was blessed with so much opportunity, beginning at the beginning: daughter of Cissy Houston, gospel and soul legend; cousin of Dionne Warwick, who mesmerized, and continues to do so, with her own magical voice; god child of the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T? Whitney had it too for the asking and then, some will say, just couldn’t seem to keep herself from letting it slip out of her talented grasp.

Thankfully, that doesn’t erase what was accomplished when she shared what was real and true and enduring. That, as Legend suggests, will always be with us. The artistic soul is as readily accessible as the next time we press “play” on whatever device we use to access our music.

Will anyone ever sing the National Anthem as passionately as did Whitney Houston on that day of so much emotion?

Will anyone ever be able to tell us about the “Greatest Love Of All” the way she did? Or make us feel that “One Moment in Time” so vividly? Or convince us, in such a heartfelt manner, that she, indeed, will always love us?

That, thankfully, is still with us, in the soul that was captured forever in her recordings.

While the numbers and accomplishments are impressive – her massive sales and resulting wealth, the pioneering efforts of her crossover to the pop charts, her many awards, the fact, even, that she broke the Beatles’ record for the most consecutive number one singles (7) – they do not define her.

Nor does the far reach of her influence and the credit she received for opening the doors for and inspiring the likes of such gifts as Janet Jackson, Anita Baker, Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Beyonce (“She provided a blueprint for all of us”), Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson, and Christina Aguilera.

What does define her goes back again to what she reminded us about the strength of music, what it can do in and for our lives, sometimes when we are not even aware that it is happening.

“She was a true original and a talent beyond compare,” notes legendary producer Quincy Jones.

Motown founder Barry Gordy remembers her as “not only an amazing artist but also a beautiful person.”

“She touched the hearts of tens of millions around the world. It’s the body of work that’s so staggering. What she delivered to the planet is just beyond belief.” says Neil Portnow, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

“Whitney is so iconic that there will never be another voice like hers. There will not be another personality likes hers,” he adds. “But she’s inspired so many and I think that’s what she would want to be remembered for, for her ability to inspire and bring hope and joy.”

Inspiration! Hope! Joy! Most people can only dream of having had such an impact.

May she – and we – finally rest in the peace of that realization.