Reflections

Like you, I loved and admired Dolly Parton. It says something extraordinary about her that, at a time when almost everything divides us, her passing has brought the country together, if only for a moment. She loved without first asking anyone to pass a test: the rednecks of Tennessee who heard home in her voice, the drag queens who recreated her in rhinestones and towering wigs, the church ladies, the feminists, the country fans and the rock stars. They all saw something of themselves in Dolly because she made room for all of them. She never mistook respectablity for goodness, nor kindness for weakness.

She rose from a cabin in the Smoky Mountains to break a hundred glass ceilings for women—as a singer, songwriter, actor, producer and formidable businesswoman—and somehow never left broken glass beneath her. She remembered where she came from and kept reaching back: putting books into the hands of thousands of children, helping families after disasters, supporting medical research and investing in the people and hills that had formed her. The rhinestones were dazzling, but the woman beneath them shone brighter. Dolly’s greatest gift may not have been her voice, or even her songs, but the example of a life large enough to contain ambition without arrogance, faith without judgment and love without conditions.