The world loved Dolly Parton, and Dolly Parton loved us all.

by Therese Odell, posted in obituary

There’s nothing I can tell you about Dolly Parton that you haven’t already read a dozen times this week. You know about her humble Appalachian beginnings in a two-room cabin; you know about her closeness to her family and how she honored her roots; you know how she modeled her iconic look after the “town trollop” because as a child she thought she was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen; you know about her very private and inspiring love story with her husband Carl; you know about her whip-smart sense of humor, most of which was self-depricating but always sweet; you know about how she wrote “I Will Always Love You” and “Jolene” in the same session; you know about why she wrote “I Will Always Love You” to Porter Wagoner and how after he sued her, she bought his music rights when he was struggling financially and then returned them to him for free; you know how she wouldn’t hand over the rights to “I Will Always Love You” just so Elvis would perform it and potentially turn it into a monster hit, and you know how she poured the royalities that were made off of it after Whitney Houston did turn it into a monster hit right back into the Black community in Nashville; you know how she was a feminist long before that was acceptable; you know about all the movies, and Dollywood and what a savvy business woman she was; you know that she helped fund the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and helped save countless lives; you know about the time she helped a homeless man in front of Slyvester Stallone who called the man “scum” and she fired back at him, “That could have been you, you ungrateful son of a bitch! Except by the grace of God. Who knows, it could be an angel sent to show you what you really are,” and how Stallone bought the homeless man a blanket as a formal apology to her; you know how she supported Black high school bands by buying them their uniforms and supported HBCUs; you know how loving and accepting she was about her LGBTQ fans; you know about the time she entered a Dolly Parton Lookalike Contest at a drag bar and lost; you know about her endless work with charities and how she would drop everything for her fans; you know how she was a quiet producer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer; you know how she changed the name from The Dixie Stampede to just The Stampede when she learned the word “Dixie” was offensive and how she didn’t cry about “cancel culture” or people being too sensitive; you know about the money she gave towards saving the American Chestnut; you know about how she supported her community following the wild fires, giving each family who lost their homes in 2016 $1,000 a month for months, no questions asked; you know how she gave high school graduates from her home county money to encourage them to stay in school and it reduced the dropout rate from 35 percent to 6 percent; you know about the sanctuary she built for Bald Eagles; you know about the money she gave to hurricane victims and to infectious childhood disease research and scholarships and rural hospitals; and of course you know about Dolly’s Imagination Library which was inspired by her father having grown up never learning how to read, and how to date it has sent 300,000,000 books to small children all around the world.

You know about all of that, so what is there left to say? Because, to be honest, I don’t have anything original left to say about Dolly Parton. I can only note that the outpouring of grief, and love, and admiration for Dolly this week, it is unlike anything I have ever seen. There has never been anyone — perhaps in my life — who has been sincerely grieved by everyone from Reba McEntire, to Eminem, to President Obama, to Pitbull, to Rob Halford, to the Royal Guard, to Donald Trump, to Oprah, to Kamala Harris, to Carol Burnett, to The Muppets, to Beyoncé, to Mick Jagger, to Paul McCartney, to Social Distortion, to President Biden. All of us. She was the one thing we all agreed on. I tried to collect as many tributes as I could below — apologies if this post crashes on you — but the thing is, I’m sure I missed so many more.

Because the whole world, we loved Dolly. How could we not? How could we not love Dolly, when she loved all of us with the entirety of her big, pink, sparkly, giving, angel heart.

@rameyfamily.4

Please Watch! Our 8 year old seeing @Dolly Parton for the first time! #passholderday #dollywood #openingday #dollyparton superfan@Toni Michelle

♬ original sound – Jordan April Ramey

 

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And now, for the world:

“A world without Dolly doesn’t feel possible, real, or right. But because of the eternally generous way she spent her time on this earth and the countless lives she changed for the better, her legacy will be an everlasting one.

“She was truly the gift that kept on giving. Dolly gave us someone to look up to while encouraging us to be who we are as individuals. Somehow she was able to give us her lessons about the world gently and honestly, simultaneously, and oftentimes hilariously,” Swift continued. “She managed to give the world the ultimate mystery and fantasy in some corners of her life, but to give full transparency in the ways that counted. Somehow she was true grace and true grit, all in one dazzling person. She possessed the softest heart when it came to the struggles of others, and a backbone of steel to defend her own self worth as an artist.

“Along with her other fans, I am so grateful for all of it. For the melodies and lyrics she wrote that thawed even the coldest hearts. For the millions of books she provided children all over the world so that they might fall in love with stories the way she did. For the tightropes she walked so that young girls like me could grow up dreaming of joining the circus too. Dolly, I’ll think of you each step of the way.” –Taylor Swift

“Dolly was a magical and joyous human. I hold knowing her as a treasure in my life. The sun has dimmed today.” –Julia Roberts

“God sent her to us, and she has returned home.” –Shirley McClaine

 

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