Dear Dolly

When I listened to Dolly Parton's nephew say that upon her death she requested to be wrapped in soft cotton after spending a life in rhinestones I smiled even though my heart was broke. Dolly Parton was one of my heroes. 

She stayed above the fray.

She valued beauty, children's literacy, her family and community. 

She was a smart business woman and she did not apologize for who she was. She sold everything from cake mixes to jeans to cookbooks, and did it all gorgeously without ever saying or feeling like she was bothering her audience. She tried new things, writing a book with James Patterson a few years ago. She was creative and curious. She never apologized for making money, instead she just found ways to share it with children, with her family, with Tennessee, with the world. 

She was not afraid to poke a little fun at herself or her style. Her art, her music well to that she was true. 

She knew how to tell a good story. Her smile made me happy. Her songs made me long for home, and my own Mama and Daddy. And my affection for her was real because I always felt that Dolly herself was real. 

I loved that she had a long marriage, and that her husband had his own business and stayed out of the limelight. I heard her say once that they sometimes like to take a drive and a picnic in their camper. And I pictured her and Carl with sandwiches or chicken and potato salad pulling up on the road side in Tennessee having lunch. And I wondered what she wore when she was not on the stage. 

And there is the phrase, "What would Dolly do?" And honestly I have asked myself that often over the years. She changed my opinion of what it was to be good. I learned that I did not have to take a side publicly, that I could keep my opinions to myself. Instead I could try to live out my values in the way I treated others and how I acted. 

She showed me that my story of growing up remains valuable all my life and that you will turn to it again and again. And that it was ok to tell it again and again and rely on it to define myself. She helped me see my mothers lumpy quilts that were made with my sister's clothes were a patchwork of my family and laying under them, three to a bed sometimes, were some of the good times. She told me that there were people I would always love and who would always love me. She told me, "I will always love you." And I believed her. Dolly loved people. And her music made me feel the things that art is meant to make you feel.

I always saw Dolly as a feminist because she took control of her business, her life and her femininity. She maintained ownership of her publishing rights even when that meant she lost a deal for Elvis Presley to record one of her songs. She was a powerful woman who embraced her beauty. I loved that. 

Dolly Parton was a saint with cleavage. She showed us you did not have to be a certain way  to be good. You could be your own soul, you could splurge, and laugh and be full of largesse and still be someone who knows what matters. She defined for herself the role she would play in the world and she made it interesting and beautiful to the rest of us.  And we watched her, and we watch her still because she helps us see the importance of being ourselves.