Whitney Houston's mon Cissy revealed she was a 'wreck' after singer's death in resurfaced Oprah interview

NEWARK, NEW JERSEY: Whitney Houston's mother Cissy Houston's tragic response to her daughter's death came back to light after the gospel singer died on Monday, October 7, at the age of 91, while in hospice care for Alzheimer's.

Cissy revealed to talk show host Oprah Winfrey in a sit-down interview in January 2013 — nearly a year after Whitney drowned at the age of 48 in a hotel bathtub in Beverly Hills — that she felt "alone" and a "wreck" upon learning of her only daughter's death.

Cissy Houston revealed she was 'alone' and 'wrecked' after her daughter Whitney Houston died

Cissy Houston, who experienced both grief and success, was a two-time Grammy Award-winning gospel and soul singer who sang with luminaries like Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley.

She revealed to Oprah one of her sons gave her a terrifying call the day Whitney was found dead.

"Well, my son called me and he was screaming, 'Ma, mommy!' And I said 'Oh God, what is wrong?' and he just said "Nippy, Nippy,'" Cissy said, addressing Whitney by the moniker her relatives gave her, per Daily Mail.

Cissy said she was "annoyed" with her son because she was unable to understand what he was trying to tell her. "He said, 'I don't know, I can't go back up there again.' I said 'You can't go back up where?' He said, 'Upstairs, they found Nippy,'" she added.

Cissy went on to say, "And I said, 'They found her? What? What,' and I was getting annoyed because he wasn't telling me anything."

"I said, 'Is she dead?' and he said 'Yeah mommy she's dead,' and I don't remember too much else after that. I was alone. I was a wreck, I was just a wreck," she said.

Now, a letter Cissy wrote to her daughter also surfaced, 12 years after the death of the 'I Will Always Love You' hitmaker. The touching tribute was shared by TMZ at the time and appeared in Whitney's funeral program.

Cissy Houston wondered if she could have saved Whitney

Following Whitney Houston's death in 2012, her mother Cissy wondered whether there was anything she could have done differently to safeguard her daughter's life.

Speaking to PEOPLE in 2013 about her intriguing memoir, 'Remembering Whitney,' Cissy pondered on her daughter's terrible death.

"I think I was a great mother, and I still do wonder if I could have saved her somehow. I think why not. Why wouldn't I wonder that? I still want her to be here," Cissy said at the time.

The Grammy-winning gospel singer added, "Yes, I wish I could have saved her. I'm sorry she had to die alone and in that kind of condition or predicament. It really made me very sad and it hurt me."

In 'Remembering Whitney,' Cissy wrote extensively about Whitney's addiction and the downhill trajectory that ended with her drowning in a hotel bathtub while still having traces of cocaine.

Cissy said in her 2013 interview, "Who knows what the course deals, where you are going in life. Life is really crazy and funny. You take one path, sometimes that's good."

"Another one, sometimes that's bad. You don't know. You don't know until it's too late. Because you know if I could have saved my daughter in any way, I would have. Any way that I could have helped her."

Cissy revealed in her memoir that seeing her daughter suffer was "very difficult."

"Nobody is born to a woman who says 'I want my daughter to be a drug addict,'" she said at the time.

"I did everything as I could that I thought was the right thing to do. Some kids listen and some people don't. Most of them don't, and they run up into something that they can't handle, and most of the time they don't talk to their parents about it."