“Mama Parton” Has Left The Building, With A Smile

Dolly Parton, who passed away on Tuesday at 80, may not have had children of her own, but she was as much a mother to the USA as anyone who did. “Mama Parton”, as I nicknamed her for this story, helped millions of children across the world with her Imagination Foundation, donating more than 332 million books and counting to children globally. The Foundation was started by Dolly, inspired to help people after her father was never able to read or write.

I couldn’t count the number of times I’d seen Dolly read to children, who were perched on her knee or gathered around her in wonderment, while the global icon read to them with enthusiasm and wide-eyed joy.

Mama Parton was joy. She never took herself seriously. She was not afraid to laugh at herself. She liked everyone. Respected everyone. And, with a giving heart as big as hers was (far bigger than the cleavage that many men in the 1970s and 80s paid ample attention to), Parton was more of a mother than Mother Theresa ever was.

So just why specifically, were Black people, particularly Black women, so mournful this week around Dolly Parton? It was her kindness and decency, her big heart and generosity and her allyship with Black people. She collaborated with Black artists, including Patti La Belle. Parton donated the $10 million of royalties received from Whitney Houston’s recording of Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” to a Black educational center in her home state of Tennessee. Parton was vocal regarding Black Lives Matter, saying the following during a Billboard Magazine interview in 2020: “I understand people having to make themselves known and felt and seen…and of course Black lives matter. Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? No!”

You can just see and hear Mama Parton in her southern twang as she says that. That is exactly something she would say. And she said it.

Dolly Parton didn’t work 9 to 5. She worked overtime to welcome everyone, listen to everyone, entertain everyone (one of the great entertainers we’ve seen) and put a smile on people’s faces, young and old.

Mama Parton loved to work. Loved to laugh. Loved to love. She had a 58-year-marriage to cherish. (Her husband Carl, whom she took care of for quite a while, passed away last year.) Parton reminded men to “touch your woman” to let them know “everything’s gonna be alright”. She wore rhinestones proudly and had a coat of a thousand colors. She took a Covid vaccine shot live on television during the early part of the Covid era. She received heat often but always stood by her convictions.

Dolly Parton had an unmistakable charm and confidence that few did. Her signature personality instantly made her lovable. Her shrewd salesmanship (Parton was also a phenomenal and exacting business owner) of her image took her not just places but around the world.

If you look up the definition of compassion or laughter or grace you would surely see Dolly Parton’s face under each word. Her Dollywood theme park was all about fun, laughter and excitement. Millions of people of all walks of life enjoyed Dollywood. Parton took principled stands, changing the name of a section of the park (excising the word “Dixie” from it) without the virtue-signaling fervor often accompanying such gestures.

Somehow, I believe that Mama Parton, who made a fuss about everybody in terms of making sure they were well taken care of, would not want us now to make a big fuss over her. Wouldn’t it be just like her to say, “Oh come on, now. Don’t bother yourselves over lil’ ol’ me!”?

Mama Parton would probably have said that it’s okay. That we will find a way. That we all are special. Hopefully many people who need to will follow her example and her selflessness. We need kindness, good deeds, positivity and selfless acts to once again be imbued into this very deeply troubled fabric.

Through it all, the tears, the pain, the joy, the rain, one thing remains unerringly true:

Dolly Parton had time for all of us. It is very sad she is not here with us now. At least she got to know just how much she was loved, admired, adored and cherished the world over, while she was here.

And at least we know that she will always love us.