Dolly: She's More Than Rhinestones and a Wig

Dolly Parton, the wealthiest woman in the history of country music, died this past week at the age of 80.  The accolades have been many, and from everywhere – from Democrats and Republicans, from Black and White, from religious conservatives and LGBTQ allies, and from people who are steeped in country music and people who never listen to it.  Because you don't have to be a country music fan to like and respect Dolly.

She was born in a tiny cabin in the mountains of Tennessee, and grew up wearing clothes fashioned from whatever bits of fabric her mother could find.  It's a little like the way my mom, born more than a decade earlier, grew up – actually living in a barn for the first two years of her life, starting first grade in a one-room schoolhouse down the road, wearing dresses made from flour sacks.  Both ladies made a lot more of their lives than where they started from.

More than meets the eye

A lot of people underestimated Dolly Parton.  She had that accent, and that big, big hair, and she cracked wise about her curvy body and the fact that she had undergone so much cosmetic surgery.  "If something is bagging, sagging, or dragging," she quipped, "I'll tuck it, suck it, or pluck it."

And yet something else she said was also true:  "I may look artificial, but I believe that I'm totally real."  And she was.  She didn't fudge.  She didn't hide.  She was who she was, and that was honest.

She was also a shrewd business woman, a great communicator, and a fantastic musician.  She sang.  She played eight or more instruments, including the guitar, banjo, dulcimer, fiddle, recorder, and piano.  And she wrote thousands of songs.  I know you know at least some of them:  9 to 5, I Will Always Love You, Coat of Many Colors, Light of a Clear Blue Morning, Jolene, Two Doors Down....

But perhaps one of her greatest legacies is her literacy program, Imagination Library.  In honor of her father, who never learned to read or write, and to help the underprivileged children of her home county, so many of whom didn't finish high school, Dolly started mailing books to all of the children who lived in and around Sevierville, Tennessee.  One book a month, from birth until age five, addressed not to the parents but to the child, so that he or she got something in the mail with their own name on it.

Today, more than 300 million books have been mailed in five countries.  Almost 15% of American children under the age of five get a Dolly book in the mail every month.  And when a kid "graduates" from the program and receives their final book,  Dolly includes a letter congratulating them and wishing them well.  In fact, some children received their letters on the day she died.  About her hopes for this program, Dolly said:

When I was growing up in the hills of east Tennessee, I knew my dreams would come true.  I know there are children in your community with their own dreams.  They dream of becoming a doctor or an inventor or a minister.  Who knows, maybe there is a little girl whose dream is to be a writer and singer.

The seeds of those dreams are often found in books and the seeds you help plant in your community can grow across the world.

The seeds Dolly planted are going to keep growing and producing good things.  And her desire to "put as much love, as much light, and as much joy out to people as you can" is exactly why our divided nation joined together in eulogizing her this week.

Fame and success aren't the point.

Dolly came from real poverty, worked tirelessly in an industry that still doesn't always take women seriously, and earned a fortune with her voice and her two hands.  No one would have been shocked if she had just enjoyed it.  But she knew something that some of the richest and most powerful people in the world seem to have forgotten.  Fame and success aren't the pinnacle of life.  Putting your name on a building or your face on a monument doesn't make you unforgettable.  What matters is what you give to others.

We don't need to be rich to do what Dolly has done.  We just need to have a little extra – and if we need to declutter and pare down and streamline our lives, I think it's clear we all have a little extra.  Former GOP congressman and political commentator Adam Kinzinger's tribute to Dolly reminds us:

You don't need a fortune to give something away.  You just need to decide, like Dolly did, that the whole point of whatever you've been given is to make your corner of the world a better place.

Thanks, Dolly.  Rest in peace.

Related article:  The Beauty and Power of Small Things