80° and Patchy rain nearby
Editor’s note: Of all the Dolly Parton tributes over the last day, this one was most real. Thanks Matt Chavez.
I’m sitting here listening to “Islands in the Stream,” and I’m feeling the loss of Dolly Parton more deeply than I expected.
Dolly was always something of an idol of mine, but not simply because of her talent or her music. It was because of what she chose to do with the life she was given.
She did good.
She had money, fame, influence and an enormous platform, and somehow never seemed to forget that those things could be used to make somebody else’s life a little better.
Her Imagination Library might be the clearest example. Millions and millions of books, sent to children simply because she believed children should have books. There is something almost radical in the simplicity of that. If you have the ability to give a child something that might open their world, you do it. You use what you have.
And tonight, listening to “Islands in the Stream,” I keep coming back to that little idea at the heart of the song: “we rely on each other.”
God, we need that spirit.
We live in a time that can feel so cynical, so transactional, so determined to convince us that caring too much is naïve. Dolly never seemed embarrassed by kindness. She could be enormously successful without becoming hard. She could be funny without being cruel. She could be proud of where she came from without needing anyone else to be smaller.
She seemed to understand something very simple: people matter more than power.
I don’t think that spirit disappears with her. I hope it doesn’t. But the world feels poorer tonight for losing one of its brightest examples.
Rest easy, Dolly.
Thank you for the songs, certainly. But even more than that, thank you for showing us what a person can do with a life when they decide to use it for good.
