Dolly Parton nearly gave me a heart attack.
I was among the millions on pins and needles learning that amid the “health challenges” that led to the postponement of Dolly’s Las Vegas concerts, Freida Parton asked for prayers for her sister, an American treasure if there ever was one.
Freida tried to clear the air that same day.
“I didn’t mean to scare anyone or make it sound so serious when asking for prayers for Dolly,” she wrote on Facebook late Tuesday, Oct. 7. “She’s been a little under the weather, and I simply asked for prayers because I believe so strongly in the power of prayer. It was nothing more than a little sister asking for prayers for her big sister.”
Too late, Freida.
Some of us were already fretting and all but picking out coats of many colors to wear to Dolly’s Smoky Mountain Songbird’s homegoing.
The iconic singer, songwriter, actress and philanthropist eased my nerves with an “I ain’t dead yet!” video posted to social media the next day.
“I know lately everybody thinks that I am sicker than I am,” Dolly said in a video posted to various platforms on Wednesday, Oct. 8. “Do I look sick to you? I’m working hard here!”
Dolly lost Carl Dean, her husband of nearly 60 years, in March. In the video, the entertainer behind “9 to 5,” “I Will Always Love You,” “Jolene” and 25 number one hit songs on the Billboard Hot Country charts says she is taking care of health issues she’s put off, but God isn’t done with her.
Neither are we.
Dolly Parton is the link
The fact is that America, and the world, need Dolly and tongue-in-cheek, breast-first humor right now.
The daughter of Tennessee is sassy but not too classy. At 79, she’s a boss lady who gives back to the world through her talent and her acclaimed charitable work. Dolly deserves sainthood for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library alone.
The 30-year-old program mails free books to children from birth to age 5. If that doesn’t warm the soul …
At times, Dolly Parton’s awesomeness is the only thing it seems like we all — the vast majority of us— can agree on.
Dolly, as I call her because we are clearly friends, has the world’s top Q Score. Never heard of it. The score measures a celebrity brand’s appeal.
Dolly is one of only 25 celebs to have had an E-score of 100 in the E-poll Market Research database.
‘Beloved by all and who loves all’
Last year, an attempt to “cancel” Dolly because she is nonjudgmental of LGBTQ+ people, or anyone else, fell on its face.
Ericka Andersen, the conservative author of the Federalist piece “There’s nothing loving about Dolly Parton’s false gospel,” found out how hard Americans of nearly every category were willing to ride at dawn for Dolly, with the outcry that followed publication.
“I regret using Dolly as the example for the point I was making in the article,” Andersen told Yahoo Entertainment. “As I wrote in the piece, I love her and think she does some incredible things for the world. We all make poor choices in how to frame things sometimes. This was one of those moments for me! Dolly is one of the few people who is beloved by all and who loves all. The world is lucky to have her.”
Dolly Parton is not perfect, but the 11-time Grammy Award-winner is pretty great. Her life is an example of how we can all be better.
She also is a reminder that, despite the nonsense and the political warfare that has Americans distrusting Americans, we aren’t all that different, and can find common ground.
I am Black and was born poor in a big Ohio city. I love a scrappy, campy White artist born decades earlier, and raised in a two-room log cabin in impoverished Tennessee.
Everybody wants safety and security, love and the freedom to live their lives.
Everyone — well, the vast majority of us — wants Dolly Parton to keep teaching us.
Amelia Robinson is the Columbus Dispatch opinion and community engagement editor.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Dolly Parton made my heart skip a beat. We’re lucky she’s still around to teach us | Opinion
Reporting by Amelia Robinson, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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