Dolly’s Joy
Photo from Upsplash by Wes McFee
Like most pop culture, Dolly Parton wasn't a big part of my life growing up. I've come to appreciate her contributions to the world much more in the past decade. News of her passing was sad, but not the deep cut that it is for many. But I knew one thing, the internet was going to be full of beauty this week, and it did not disappoint.
I’ll confess to shameless scrolling and endless clicks on Dolly tributes. I want to learn more about this icon who chose not to become a billionaire but instead poured into her world, to laugh with her wit, and sit with her songs. In the listening I’ve become more aware of how much of her music was intertwined in my world—I just didn’t know how she had touched it.
Music opens places in me that I can’t often identify, and those unnamed places make their presence known in warm salty tears as Dolly sings. I can feel the emotion of the lyrics laid over the melody, and I can grieve the passing of a woman who didn’t let the world define her.
I realize that Dolly’s passing is a grief that is small enough for me to wrap my heart around. It won’t overwhelm me. It holds joy-filled memories. It opens places of discovery. I can’t help but wonder if it is also a vent value. Not for personal grief, like the passing of a friend, a parent, or a child, but for the collective grief that is too big and nameless to pars: Napal’s devastating floods; the American’s serving on the Abraham Lincoln who were deployed too long without support from home; the gutting of safety nets for our most vulnerable; the steady march of climate change; the relentless greed and callousness of those ruling the world.
Those griefs, and others of that magnitude (I’m sure you have your own list), sit deep, sometimes beyond the realm of processing. But when someone like Dolly passes, when a goodness we can touch leaves this mortal plain, we can pay tribute, we can cry, we can remember all the places her work touched in our lives. In that process, perhaps, the larger pain has a place to release, to be seen for a moment when the tears for Dolly feel slightly disproportionate to the actual relationship; I realize I am grieving for the unnamed I carry in my soul.
Maybe it’s one parting gift Ms. Parton left us: a touchable place to grieve the things that are dying. In the grief, in the remembering, maybe, we can find the invitation to take her joy, take her grit, take her “ain’t-nobody-gonna-hold-me-down” and find the hope in what is ours to do in this precious world.
#joyasresistance