Whitney Houston remembered at NJ hometown funeral

You wait for a voice like that for a lifetime," said music mogul Clive Davis, who shepherded Houston's career for decades.

The service had lighthearted moments too - Kevin Costner imagining a young Houston using her winning smile to get out of trouble, Houston's cousin Dionne Warwick offering short insights about the singer.

Others were more mournful; singer Ray J., who spent time with Houston during her last days, broke down crying. His sister, singer Brandy, put her arm around him. Cissy Houston and Houston's daughter, 18-year-old Bobbi Kristina, clutched each other. Toward the end of the service, Bobbi Kristina and Ray J. embraced at length and spoke. Others gathered near the front of the church and hugged each other.

The most powerful moment was reserved for the end. As Houston's casket was carried out, her hit "I Will Always Love You" played. Bobbi Kristina began crying, and the sobs of Houston's mother rang throughout the church.

"My baby!" she wailed.

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Stevie Wonder and Oprah Winfrey were among the biggest names gathered to mourn Houston, along with Hudson, Monica, Brandy and Jordin Sparks - representing a generation of big-voiced young singers who grew up emulating her.

Costner, her co-star in "The Bodyguard," which spawned her greatest hit, remembered a movie star who was uncertain of her own fame, who "still wondered, `Am I good enough? Am I pretty enough? Will they like me?'"

"It was the burden that made her great and the part that caused her to stumble in the end," Costner said.

Close family friend Aretha Franklin, whom Houston lovingly called "Aunt Ree," had been expected to sing at the service, but she was too ill to attend. Franklin said in an email to The Associated Press that she had been up most of the night with leg spasms and sent best wishes to the family. "May God bless and keep them all," she wrote.

A program featuring a picture of Houston looking skyward read "Celebrating the life of Whitney Elizabeth Houston, a child of God." Pictures of Houston as a baby, with her mother and daughter filled the program.

"I never told you that when you were born, the Holy Spirit told me that you would not be with me long," Cissy Houston wrote her daughter in a letter published in the program. "And I thank God for the beautiful flower he allowed me to raise and cherish for 48 years."

"Rest, my baby girl in peace," the letter ends, signed "mommie."

The service marks one week after Houston, one of music's all-time biggest stars, was found dead in a Beverly Hills hotel in California. A cause of death has yet to be determined.

To the world, Houston was the pop queen with the perfect voice, the dazzling diva with regal beauty, a troubled superstar suffering from addiction and, finally, another victim of the dark side of fame.

To her family and friends, she was just "Nippy." A nickname given to Houston when she was a child, it stuck with her through adulthood and, later, would become the name of one of her companies. To them, she was a sister, a friend, a daughter, and a mother.