Yesterday morning, I looked at my phone to discover the horrible news so many of us discovered:
That Dolly Parton died.
I wasn’t surprised by how it shook me.
I have long admired a person who stays kind, and true to their convictions. I had followed her and listened to her for as long as I have memories.
These days, however, it just seems like the ones who are universally beloved are kind of fleeting.
The weight of the news of her loss sat on my chest all morning.
I opened up the video message her nephew had put out on her official page, and the tears started flowing and didn’t stop for an hour.
“This is a tribute of a life well-lived,”
I thought.
“A life that was truly worth honoring.”
It was a tribute for a person who had it all, financially, but who spent her life turning it right back around and letting it flow outward.
Hers way was the best one.
I spent part of my childhood in the South.
Most of my extended family still lives there.
Dolly is as much a part of the culture there as rocking chairs on porches, having more than one Christmas tree, and eating biscuits and gravy at Cracker Barrel.
But the thing I loved about her is the way she stretched far beyond just small towns and country music.
She was so much more than blonde hair, rhinestones, and her identifiable vibrato.
Dolly stretched beyond any boundary any person drew for others, because she believed her main calling was to BE LOVE to people,
and she believed that all people deserved it.
She expanded into everything because she was never threatening to anyone.
She was as soft as the plush cotton she asked to be laid to rest on.
She was welcome in every heart because she brought love with her everywhere,
and never showed up with a harsh tone or judgment.
People crave that.
As you scroll through countless tributes in the next few days, notice how you will never hear one negative word spoken about her from anyone.
This is because she never spoke one.
She was more than just a soft voice.
She was a soft interior.
Dolly knew that truly living in this life had nothing to do with money or the power that it could afford you.
Dolly knew it was all about LOVE.
She knew it was about lifting others up with every part of your being.
She did it with her money.
She did it with her position.
She did it with a guitar and her irreplaceable talent.
She had raised her siblings in poverty,
and then she turned around and spent the rest of her life raising all of us.
She sang “I will always love you,” and she sang it to each one of us.
Every month, like clockwork, my 2-year-old granddaughter, Mavis, receives a book from her foundation in the mail.
She runs, excited to look in the mailbox. She had taken to calling her “Aunt Dolly.”
These aren’t cheap little books, either. They are well-made, filled with interesting stories, with beautiful pictures.
I love knowing it was never just Mavis who ran to the mailbox, either.
It was millions of children, across the economic and racial spectrum, just as excited, who were being given the gift of falling in love with reading.
Dolly knew it was a gift they would have all of their lives if they embraced it.
It would carry them far beyond their own boundaries and borders, and maybe one day one of them would also impact millions of others;
Like a drop on the water,
causing infinite ripples.
For that one day a month,
all over the country, a million children get to sit down and read a book together.
What a gift!
One person showed up and loved them all together.
Dolly Parton lived her life with the belief that every person mattered.
She had been the poor kid, the dirty kid, the kid that didn’t look like much, the overlooked one,
and she kept that feeling inside her and chose to never forget about it.
She knew that it’s not just about getting as rich as you can, or doing whatever you want that equals success,
but it is loving others in every way you can that really matters.
I rarely cry when celebrities die.
They often feel far removed.
They often feel untouchable to me.
But Dolly Parton? She was different.
She was the friend with her arm around your shoulder.
She was a lifter of chins.
She was a voice saying, “You’ve got this, and if you don’t, I’ll help carry you,”
and the loss of someone like that in this era feels monumental.
I can remember two celebrities who have had this kind of impact on me, and those two are
Fred Rodgers, and Dolly Parton:
Two souls who stand out, because they spent their lives standing out in the only real way that matters.
We would all do well to learn from them,
To include like them,
To soften our tones and listen like them,
To use them as our heroes, and our country’s best examples.
Dolly Parton was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of woman.
What an honor it is to have once shared this planet.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
