Dolly Parton was a role model for all of us: the U.S. Ambassador to Love, the real kind that means loving your neighbor no matter the color of their skin, the language they speak, who they love, or which box they check on a ballot. She was generous in ways that seemed almost impossible for one human to be, pouring out her fortune and her heart in equal measure, as if she had discovered some secret well of kindness that never ran dry. Her origins went beyond humble; they were the kind of poverty that breaks most people or hardens them, and yet they gave her a clarity about what actually matters that so many people who have never wanted for anything never find. And she never tried to outrun where she came from. She celebrated it and spoke of her parents and her siblings with pride that never dimmed no matter how bright the lights were shone on her.

She stood five feet tall, and yet she filled every room she walked into with an angelic voice that could break your heart and mend it in the same verse, with beauty that was entirely her own invention, and a welcoming warmth so total that strangers left her presence feeling like family. There has never been anyone like her, and I don’t believe there ever will be again. The world doesn’t make many people like Dolly. Maybe she was simply one of one, a once in a lifetime human. She created over 3,000 songs in her music lifetime. She founded the Imagination Library, an organization that gifts books to children five and under, opening doors to worlds beyond their own and planting the seed of curiosity so vital to a fulfilled life.

As she travels on into the Great Perhaps, I hope she and her beloved Carl are walking together the way they did for nearly sixty years, with all the time left in the world and nowhere else they’d rather be. Rest in power and peace, dearest Dolly. You gave us everything, and we will love you back for the rest of our lives.

                                                                                    ~ © Diana Ossana, 27 August 2026