Rest in Peace, Dolly

I loved Dolly Parton. I didn’t know her personally, but I kind of felt like I did. She had that quality that made people think she’d be a really great friend if only they’d met, and like she was talking directly to us in her interviews, singing directly to us in her songs. Maybe because she was never one of those people who forgot where she came from.

There are people we admire for what they create, and then there are people whose way of moving through the world teaches us how we want to move through it, too. Dolly was both for me. She taught me that taking care of a community is not an abstract idea, and not something you do with just your words, but that it’s your actions that can make a real difference. Our job is to notice what people need, and then find a way to help. Dolly gave away children’s books (my grandkids were recipients of many.) She helped feed families and helped children get high quality medical care. She invested in the area of East Tennessee that raised her and her many siblings, and very intentionally turned that economy into a booming area that employs hundreds of thousands of people. She pays for college for her employees. She used her influence, resources, and abilities to make life a little or even a lot better for so many, many people.

She taught me that kindness and strength are not opposites. Dolly could be gracious without being a pushover. She always put her best foot forward and never apologized for being who she was. She treated people with dignity and consistently stood up for what she believed was right. There was steel underneath all that warmth and sparkle. I have always so admired these things about her and secretly wish I could wear as many rhinestones as she always did when she was in the public eye (I’m not sure how many people would take a sparkling lawyer very seriously, though.)

She taught me something about judgment, too. She refused to judge people simply because their lives looked different from her own or their needs or thoughts didn’t perfectly align with her own. She made room for all people, and she clearly and without apology stood beside those who were marginalized or dismissed. She seemed to understand a truth I wish more of us remembered: that you do not have to understand every part of another person's life to recognize their humanity. She didn’t just talk the words of Jesus, she walked the walk. Not a lot of people do that these days, it seems, but she certainly seemed as though she had mastered the Golden Rule.

Her commitment to children's literacy through the Imagination Library has put books into the hands of generations of children. Her philanthropy supported health care and medical research. Again and again, she demonstrated that success is not only about what you accomplish for yourself; it is also about what becomes possible for other people because you were here. Of course I will remember her distinctive, pretty voice, the songs she wrote about things that happened in her life, the humor she always shared not only in those lyrics but in interviews, the rhinestones, the big platinum hair, and that unmistakable ability to be completely, unapologetically herself. But what mattered to me went deeper than celebrity. I will remember the example she set for all of us who bother to look.

Take care of your community. Get involved.

Care about people, no matter who they are, where they come from, what religion they follow, or what they look like.

Put your best foot forward. Shine if you want to shine, and don’t apologize for who you are when you’re trying your best.

Be kind, but do not mistake kindness for silence when something is wrong. Stand up for people who cannot speak for themselves.

Don’t be so quick to judge. We do not know the troubles a person could be shouldering.

Make sure children have books to read, and read with them. Share the joy of reading with people you love.

And if life gives you more than you need, find a way to send some of it back down the mountain.

Dolly Parton showed that you could be glamorous without being self-important, principled without being cruel, successful without forgetting where you came from, and generous without making generosity about yourself. I loved her for all of that. The world knew Dolly Parton as an extraordinary songwriter, singer, performer, businesswoman, and philanthropist, but some of us who followed her and paid attention to her over the years also knew her as a teacher. We watched what she did with the life she was given and saw the genius in how she responded to it. She didn’t just tell people to do good things, she did good things. Lots of them. She taught by example, and I am grateful I got to learn from her.