Don't block the blessings: singer's new book reveals grief, fears and triumphs of a lifetime

Ebony, Nov, 1996 by Patti LaBelle

Singer's new book reveals grief, fears and triumphs of a lifetime

This day had been planned for weeks. We were shooting the video for my single, "If You Asked Me To." Everything was in place. We were all set to go and everyone was waiting for me. The camera started rolling, the music began to play - it was time for me to perform. As I moved to my mark, I could feel all eyes following me. I knew what they were thinking. It was written all over their faces: Could I do it? Would I be able to hold it together? Could I make it through?

The night before, my husband asked me if I wanted to cancel this shoot. I told him no. I had to do this. It didn't seem, at the time, that I'd ever feel better and I had to find a way to push past the pain. My husband had come in case I needed him. So had my youngest son. But when the shoot began, it was just me - standing all alone in the spotlight dressed in Black. It was the first time I would shoot a video solo, without anyone else in the scene, and I had never felt so alone in my life. That was as it should have been because I was alone in my pain and there was no one else to blame for what I was feeling but me.

This was my sister's birthday. July 12, 1989. Had she lived to see it, she would have been 44. But she didn't make it. As everyone in this room knew, I had buried her just the day before. They knew that. But they didn't know the worst part. Most people don't. Most people have no idea why it has become so important to me to reach out to so many others. Yes, the causes I support - Big Sisters of America, Save the Children, the United Negro College Fund, the American Cancer Society and the National Minority AIDS Council - are doing important work. Yes, my contribution to these and other groups has earned me civic awards which I treasure and hold dear - three NAACP Image Awards, a medal from the Congressional Black Caucus, even a cancer research laboratory dedicated in my honor. But what drives me to say "yes" to all these organizations is more, much more, than the joy of helping others. That's only part of it. The other part is something few people know about me, something that haunted me for years. I say "yes" every chance I get now because once, when it really, really counted, I said "no."

It was such a little thing that my sister had asked of me. I've done much bigger things for perfect strangers. And anyway, how long would it have taken me to do it - fifteen, twenty minutes, tops? But I said "no." I refused. There wasn't a good reason. Not really. It wasn't as if I was busy or had something pressing to do that couldn't wait. I just didn't want to do it. I had been going back and forth to the hospital for days and I finally had a quiet moment at home to relax. That's when the phone rang. It was my sister. She wanted me to do her a favor. The chemotherapy treatments had made her so sick she didn't want to touch any of that hospital food.

"Please, Patsy," she said. "I'm hungry - hungry for one of your egg sandwiches. It's the only thing I have a taste for. Will you make it for me?"

"Now?" I asked. "Do you have to have it this minute? I don't feel like it right now. I'm tired. I'll make it later."

After that phone call, my sister got worse. Much worse. And later never came. She was on a respirator and in and out of consciousness. Days after that call, she died. The thought kept tormenting me - that I had refused to do the one thing she asked of me, the one thing that could have given my sister some small amount of pleasure as she was about to leave this world.

That's all I could think about as I gave the director the signal I was ready to begin. Maybe I was being punished. Maybe I deserved to be Maybe it was poetic justice that I would have to sing this song, these words, this day:

"If you asked me to,

I just might change my mind and let you in my life forever...

All you gotta do is ask me to;

I'll give you my world, I'll give you my heart,

I'll give you anything; just ask me, baby."

I couldn't hold back the tears. The more I sang, the more I thought - about what I had done, what I hadn't done, what I could never be able to do again. The more I thought, the harder I cried. Those tears you see on that video? There's nothing phony about them. They're real. The pain you couldn't possibly see was very real - almost unbearable. It got so bad that, before the video could be released, most of the tears ended up on the cutting room floor. That whole shoot was agonizing, but I made it through. More than anybody, my sister would have wanted me to. I know that sounds like a cliche, but its true. More than anybody, she wanted me to soar. In my heart I knew that. In my head, I tried to convince myself that she had forgiven me. But still, every day for the next five years, I was tortured - by grief, by guilt, and most of all, by fear.

That probably sounds unbelievable, especially the fear part. Most people who have seen me perform don't think I could be afraid of anything. Not Patti LaBelle - that brazen, outrageous diva who will do and say just about anything on stage. If you've ever been to one of my shows, you know they're part concert, part revival, part confession, part church. Sometimes - okay a lot of times - I even get to preaching. I know people come to my shows to listen to me sing, but in between songs, I make sure they listen to me talk. About faith - in God and in themselves. About hope - for today and tomorrow. About love - in good times and bad. And while I believe every word I say, Lord knows I do, here's the unadorned, barefaced, not-so-pretty truth: I didn't always practice what I preach.