WWDD – This is a hard one

Black and white smiling woman headshot with sunglasses

There are certain moments throughout our lives that become “memory touchstones”, if you will. Unfortunately, those touchstones are often associated with tragedy.

Those of us of a certain age remember exactly where we were when JFK was assassinated. What we were doing on the morning of September 11, 2001. Who we were with when Hillary conceded.

Dolly Parton, accepting in her Kennedy Center Honors award in 2006. Via Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Dolly Parton’s passing on August 25 is destined to be one of those universal gut-punch touchstones.

What were you doing when you heard the news? Were you at work? Were you stuck in traffic? Were you alone? In a crowd?

I was at a gate in the Pittsburgh airport, waiting for my flight home to Houston. The usual din normally heard in that setting dropped substantially when the news broke. People looked up from their phones with solemn expressions. Hushed, even reverent whispers of “Oh no,” and “Not Dolly!” replaced standard airport chatter. Total strangers shared sudden grief.

Dolly was that rare family member that everyone loved. She was our protective sister, our funny aunt, our boo-boo kissing mother, our wise grandmother.

You already know about Dolly’s generosity. She donated millions of dollars to Covid research, to children’s hospitals, to education and literacy, to preserve bald eagles (!), to families displaced by disaster.

Though she and her late husband Carl had no children of their own, Dolly especially loved the little children. All the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, all were precious in her sight.

Don’t get it twisted. I’m not comparing Dolly to Jesus. But she was the penultimate “good Christian,” a term which has in recent years experienced a drastic rebranding.

Remember those WWJD bracelets and bumper stickers, that pop culture trend that encouraged believers to make life choices by asking “What would Jesus do?”

Dolly did what Christians are supposed to do, which is to live in obedience to the two greatest commandments: to love God and to love each another. She knew if you followed these two biggies, the other eight commandments would be covered. She did exactly that in both word and deed.

“Well, if you’re the fine Christian that you think you are, why are you judging people? That’s God’s job,” she reasoned. “We’re not God. We’re not judges. We’re supposed to love one another.”

Dolly loved God and others and, Lord, how she loved the gays. Her unrepentant affection for our community has been well reported for decades. But did you that a transman, Jason Pirro, was her chauffeur and assistant for 30 years? I didn’t.

She once even said, “It’s a good thing I was born a girl, otherwise I’d be a drag queen!”

DOLLY LOVES EVERYONE

Dolly and her chauffeur, Jason Pirro. Via Facebook.com

Dolly was indeed our queen, drag or otherwise, despite the financial damage her unfaltering loyalty to us could have done to her career. Despite potential physical danger to herself.

Think back to 2017, the year Trump first took office. It was a landmark year for hate.

  • In 2017, U.S. lawmakers wrote no less than 129 anti-LGBTQ bills.
  • That same year, sexual orientation and gender identity categories were deleted from the 2020 Census, redacting statistical LGBTQ information about our population and our families.
  • In 2017, transfolk were banned from serving “in any capacity” in the U.S. Military.
  • Attacks against LGBTQs spiked in 2017, with the NYC Anti-Violence Project noting that a gay or trans person was killed about once every 13 days.

That same year, in response to this stifling climate of intolerance, Dolly collaborated with her pansexual god-daughter Miley Cyrus to record “Rainbowland”. The song wasn’t one of Dolly’s greatest commercial hits, but it was solid platinum in the hearts of its intended audience. It very pointedly called out “All the hurt and the hate going on here.”

“We are rainbows, me and you, Every color, every hue. Let’s shine on through. Together we can start living in a Rainbowland. The skies are blue and things are grand. Wouldn’t it be nice to live in paradise, where we’re free to be exactly who we are? Let’s all dig down deep inside, brush the judgment and fear aside. Make wrong things right and end the fight because, I promise, ain’t nobody gonna win.”

Predictably, news of Dolly’s death prompted a social media explosion, with tributes sent by millions whose lives she touched. One of the most ubiquitous posts summed up our global grief in just one sentence: “This is a hard one.”

In all her bleached-blonde, face-painted, fake-fingernailed, bustier-busting, truth-telling glory, Dolly Parton was absolutely the real deal. The realest.

Sweet Jesus, she will be missed.

 

 

 

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