What a Way to Make a Living

Dolly Parton is a verb for how to be.

I’m standing in my favorite Los Angeles thrift store in the Atwater Village neighborhood with my pup Gilda Radner in tow, filling my cart with jewels. A pristine pair of linen blend Vince pants in my size for $3.25. A rare (and new with tags) Strata x Holy Ship collab gray denim jacket, valued at $250+ for $12. A darling and what I assume to be a one-of-a-kind tee with a minimalist line drawing of a guitar and the sentence “I Wrote a Song for You” for a dollar. I’m hanging up my treasures on an empty rack near a full-length mirror, assessing my haul piece by piece. My phone is in hand to Google Lens the items I want a deeper dive on when the alert pops up. And without even clicking through, I can immediately tell what it’s about by the way it’s worded.

Leading with the name, the age.

I audibly gasp in a way that makes other shoppers’ heads turn.

It is 10:54am pacific, and Dolly Parton has passed away.

I did what I’m sure many people did: furiously searched for proof that this was false, just an internet rumor, but the video from her nephew on her official Instagram page confirmed it. I start texting family and friends like we’ve just lost one of our favorite aunt, sister, grandmother, teacher, best friend. Because we have. And then I sit on the floor next to Gilda for a good 20 minutes.

No one in the store asks me why. No one has to. The tsunami of collective grief is starting to make its way around the globe.

I’ve mourned the loss of famous people before. Haven’t we all? George Michael flattened me for a week. Prince was even worse. But nothing prepared me for how hard Dolly Parton’s death landed. I can’t think of another human being so universally loved. Not just admired and respected (those things, too). But truly LOVED, including by and between people who agree on literally nothing else. That kind of consensus doesn’t happen by accident, and it definitely doesn’t happen to someone who plays it safe.

Dolly didn’t play it safe. She just played it kind.

She stood tall (usually on 6” heels) in the face of being underestimated. The wigs, the rhinestones, the eyeshadow, and yes, the boobs. And then spent six decades proving every person who laughed at the packaging wrong, by becoming easily the MOST talented and gifted songwriter of all time. She wrote her first song at age six, performed regularly on TV by age 10, made her first recording at 11, and became a professional songwriter at 16. At the time of her passing, she had over 3,000 songs in her canon, and released 49 studio albums, winning every award there ever was to be won. And she knew the value of her own work from day one. When Elvis approached her to record “I Will Always Love You,” she turned him down because the contract terms weren’t fair to her, including surrendering the rights to the song, at a time where that potential payout was desperately needed. But she trusted her gut, protected her work, and then she went on to make more money than most of the men who mocked her for her bust line ever will.

And she gave SO MUCH of it away. Not in a press-release way. In a 200-million-books-mailed-to-kids-for-free way. In a funded-the-research-that-helped-get-us-the-COVID-vaccine way. She also showed multiple generations of people raised in the church what actually following its teachings looks like. Not the version that hands out conditions. The version that says everyone gets a seat, no asterisk. And she meant it, said it out loud throughout her entire life, regardless of the potential cost to her career.

Eventually, I stand back up in the thrift store, and look to my left at a shelf of books I’ve yet to comb through. And swear to God, the first thing I spy is Dolly’s beaming smile and big hair on a hardcover copy of Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business, the gold letters catching the light with the sparkle and shine she exuded throughout her entire life. The book came out in 1994, so of course she had unfinished business then, but it’s a sentiment that fueled her drive up until the very end. Days before her passing, she had shared a health update by way of a video message online, and said, “I still have so many things I want to achieve, so I’m gonna keep on working as long as I can to see everything come to life.”

I grab the book (obviously). When I’m checking out and placing things on the counter to be rung up, I hold it in one hand, and the “I Wrote a Song for You” tee in my other. And I realize that among the many, many brilliant songs written by this absolute global treasure, she also gave us, in her own words, the anthem for exactly how millions of us feel about her right now. Or rather, always. The kind of love that remains eternal through continuing to live out everything she stood for.

XO,
SG

Hopeless Semantic lands in your inbox on Wednesdays. If someone in your life belongs here, send them this way.