Missing Mandisa: A Testimony of Love for My Friend Mandisa Lynn Hundley
Mandisa and I met nearly 30 years ago. Her spirit was so much bigger in real life that writing this here for me feels small because I can’t find the words; there just aren’t any words but let me try.
Over the last 10 days or so, many people have called Mandisa Lynn Hundley so many beautiful things: “a woman of God,” “a soulful spirit,” “a light.” I called her “Star” because I knew she was. She called me Robyn because, like Terry McMillian’s character, I was always waiting to exhale and had “way too many Russells to handle,” she would say. She was right. Mandisa was always right. And boy, could she sing! She couldn’t just sing; the sister SANG! We met on the C3 wing of Shane Hall at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee in 1996. Her suite was directly across from mine. Illness has robbed me of the memory of that exact day that we met. But I remember that big, beautiful smile that crossed her face when she introduced herself as “Mandisa.” Just Mandisa. This is what I loved about my HBCU experience. I met so many young women whose “ethnic sounding” names weren’t an anomaly, but the norm. The first person I met was Jamillah, the second was Mandisa.
Mandisa had the word “Star” on her wall above her bed. She had dreams of being a star. We called ourselves C3 in recognition of the wing in which we lived. This was our squad — Mandisa, Pam, Raeshawn, Jamillah, Jennifer, Sabrina, and me. It never bothered us that Sabrina didn’t actually live in C3, in fact, she didn’t live in Shane Hall, but she was C3 and we rolled deep. Wherever we went there was a party, we made our own fun and Mandisa was always at the center of that. Before she was a Grammy-winning artist and American Idol contestant, she was the sweetest soul, sitting there on her raised bed sucking her thumb, and pretending to give her Grammy acceptance speech to us. You could always tell how closely Mandisa was paying attention to you because the thumb sucking was more intense, and she squinted as if she was trying to see into your soul. But when she thought the situation was BS, the thumb sucking stopped, she’d tilt her head in disbelief, and start shaking her finger, “See…” and you knew whatever else came after that would be funny, but it would also be true and honest. That was Mandisa.
She loved Whitney Houston. I loved Prince and riding around Nashville, we’d listen to both. We’d sing Prince’s “Take Me With U,” at peak volume and then she’d sing “I’m Every Woman,” Whitney’s version and I would listen because as a toddler, I loved Chaka Khan’s version. It would later be Mandisa’s live version on American Idol that would be my favorite rendition of all.
One day, I took Mandisa to the doctor because she thought she had strep throat. I remember sitting there waiting for the doctor. She shared that she was concerned because she had some upcoming singing engagements, and this was something she just didn’t have time for. The doctor came in, looked at her throat, and sure enough it was strep. Mandisa looked at him with that red scarf wrapped around her neck and said, “Are you sure?” The doctor said, “Well, if your friend doesn’t mind opening up, I will show you what a normal throat looks like.” Wouldn’t you know it, I took Mandisa for her to be tested for strep throat and left with an appointment for a tonsillectomy myself! On the drive back to campus, Mandisa said, “you aren’t going to be able to eat for a while, so we should probably go to Chili’s now.”
We all loved that Chili’s on West End Boulevard in Nashville. There were many nights where all or most of C3 would go together. Then there were times, often late, when Mandisa and I would go alone. She would order the chicken crispers and we would split this skillet chocolate chip cookie thing with ice cream. The food was an aside; it was the conversations that I cherish. Those conversations were so private that I don’t want to discuss them here, but she was always so supportive, encouraging, and funny. When we laughed, we laughed together, and when I cried during those discussions, she cried right along with me. She was a sympathetic crier.
It is no secret that we both struggled with our weights. This pain was something we both understood intimately about one another. Those conversations, too, I will forever keep private. As I will the letters from the summers of 1997 and 1998 as we took to eating healthy and exercising. We wrote to each other every week to keep one another focused and just to be in fellowship and friendship. I knew she also struggled with other things, as we all do, but that, too, I understood intimately and will also keep those conversations private. We both had traumatic experiences in our youth and those traumas are the only things that I regret in knowing we were connected by. She was the first person I told and for many years, 22 of them to be exact, Mandisa was the only person who knew.
We didn’t always get along, that is the truth, but I guess that is what happens when you come face to face with yourself. We were two sides of the same coin. Yin and Yang. Good and bad. She was the good. She was always good except for those times when she was mischievous. I remember her jokes. There’s one she played on me on April Fool’s Day 1997. Plastered this one picture I hated and everywhere I went on campus. The whole day, I just kept seeing this picture and writing that said, “Aisha I’m back and coming for you.” And when I was at the height of my panic, reading “turn around,” on the last picture on my door I heard this booming laugh. Mandisa was in stitches. You couldn’t be mad because it was a good joke and she really put thought and preparation into it. But that’s because in our group of friends, she knew each one of us intimately and she never forgot a birthday or opportunity to celebrate you and your accomplishments.
Now, when people say she was the light in the room, they aren’t exaggerating. Mandisa knew how to make an entrance. I never told her this, or maybe I did, but the way she entered a room reminded me of how Wilona always entered the Evanses apartment on the original Good Times. It was an event because, after all, Mandisa was the ultimate diva. She always had something to say, and, like Wilona, it was always good because no one could tell a story the way she did.
I will never forget the year she was in Fisk’s production of Dreamgirls. She played Effie White, the character originated by Jennifer Holiday on Broadway and later by Mandisa’s fellow American Idol alum, Jennifer Hudson on film. We went twice. And when she sang “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going,” that was the very first time I cried listening to Mandisa sing. Mandisa was always singing, but that time made me cry. The second night we went, I sat next to her father who had flown in from Texas, just to see his baby’s performance. And when she finished that signature song, her father cried. I could feel his pride in her as we stood there giving Mandisa that standing ovation she deserved.
I got my master’s degree from Fisk in 1999 and left Nashville in 2000, the year she graduated. Some years had passed, there were a few emails and calls here and there, but in 2002, I had a baby and mommy duties pulled me away from my close friendships, as did the abusive relationship that came along with it. But, in 2004, I got an email from Mandisa. I was in my office and began catching up and I told her I was going to see Prince in a few weeks. Then, I told her about my baby, who at that time was 18 months old. I uploaded a photo of my little one. “Robyn, I can’t believe you are a mother,” she said.” I told her, “Yeah, and neither can my child.” “Lol,” she responded, “You are so silly.” Mandisa also laughed when I told her my child was a “holy roller,” and she said, "Well you must be doing something right if she has accepted the Lord as her savior and she’s not even two yet.” I asked her if she had been watching American Idol and that she should audition. I could sense her hesitation. “I don’t know, I thought about it, but I don’t think so.” I left it at that, and we moved on to something else.
So, it was a surprise when I tuned into season five of the show and saw Mandisa’s audition. I was so excited. But my excitement turned to pain. That remark Simon made, pointing out the very thing she was so insecure about to millions of people watching broke my heart. It was cruel and for me, it would be unforgivable, but not for Mandisa. She was still the good of us two and had forgiveness in her heart enough to “humble” a very frosty Simon Cowell (see, I’m still not over it). She came in at the top nine. Star was on her way to becoming a star.
We kept in touch over the years. Life, you know, has a way of getting in the way of relationships. We last spoke around quarantine through email and the like and I was telling her I had begun having seizures and didn’t quite know why. She got a puppy and hadn’t quite known why herself but was trying something new. Her last message to me asked what I was doing. I told her I was bored, but happy to be holed up, and quarantined with all of my family under one roof. She told me I was blessed and to keep praying through all of this Covid-19 stuff we still didn’t really understand. I told her I would. My last words to her were, “Be well.”
I always say no one could ever pay me enough to relive my twenties. But today, I’d give anything to be 21–24 again. Just for five minutes to tell my friend Mandisa, how much she mattered and how much I admired her faith and fierce spirit. Her belief in God’s goodness was not lost on me. Because of her I pray more. I connect with God and with goodness. Every day, I take at least one hour just to be with the Lord. And I know that was her doing.
She made the gospel danceable. So today I dance for her and in her memory. She wanted all of us to love God as she did. And I do. But more than anything I hope she knew that I loved her, too. She was one-of-a-kind, to quote Prince “those kinds of cars (friends) don’t pass you every day.” She was a best friend to everyone she knew. That was our Star; she never met a stranger — everyone she met was a friend. Now my friend is gone, and it hurts. Badly. But I give myself the grace to mourn, process this loss, and feel every emotion I need to feel until her memory makes me smile again.
Mandisa, may your heaven be pink and filled with lots of glitter and all the little sparkly things we loved. It was a pleasure — no — an honor to have known and loved you. C32D Forever (She knows what it means)!
