Dolly Parton: A Legacy of Resilience, Hope and Healing
Honoring and celebrating someone is a way to grieve, remember and connect with meaningful lessons and memories while expressing gratitude towards influential individuals in our lives. This is the start of how legacies are created. The news of Dolly Parton’s death is resounding across many populations. This was a person whose name is known across generations and communities, a legacy that started even before death. She became-and remains-timeless.
Thinking about Dolly also invites us to reflect on the ways we express emotion and pay tribute to the individuals who carry hope for us, even when it is difficult to find hope within ourselves.
Dolly’s life was not always “sparkles,” although her spirit sparked from birth. Dolly was born into what many would consider adverse conditions. She was born in a 1 room house, had 11 siblings, no running water or electricity. Her father, she has shared, was illiterate. The family however, had resiliency of love, connection, encouragement and support for innovation.
Many of us have heard of ACE scores, a numbered assessment from 0-10 that calculates Adverse Childhood Experiences. A high score may indicate (but is not completely determinative of) increased statistical risk for certain adult health challenges. This however, is not hopeless, because Resiliency and protective factors can reduce risk and support positive outcomes. Protective Factors can include family support, community support and personal optimism. When I think of Dolly Parton, I think of how she is, and was, and remains, a protective factor, a creator and inspiration of resilience.
Dolly showed women the importance of building the confidence to stand up for ourselves and challenge sexism and harassment in the workplace within the movie “9 to 5,” a movie that was before its time in showing how women in offices experienced widespread sexual harassment, were underpaid and overlooked for promotions. Dolly created the hit theme song that additionally resonated with a broad audience of women, a resounding message of empowerment to women with lyrics of:
“Working 5 to 9, making something of your own now
And it feels so fine to build a business from your know-how
Gonna move ahead, and there’s nothing that you can’t do
When you listen to that little voice inside you”
(Full song lyrics here: https://youtu.be/Pcm2yDp8XxI?si=IiUxuw2I1f0pd1qF )
Through her support and passion for children, some of whom may be facing intensive adversity, she provided resiliency through access to literacy. Dolly created her Imagination Library in 1995, which has now grown into a global book-gifting program. More than three million books are currently estimated to be mailed each month worldwide (imaginationlibrary.com). Her inspiration and passion towards sharing literacy with children stemmed from her belief that “the seeds of dreams are often found in books” (Dolly Parton; The Library of Congress Imagination Library Dedication). Dolly worked hard to help children access their imagination, potential and resilience through reading.
Dolly’s philanthropic gestures to medical research and development has additionally been a visible and invisible lifeline to current and future patients. She modeled for us that by holding onto your dreams, anything is possible. From donating to COVID Research Funds, Pediatric Infectious Disease Research and Pediatric Cancer, (just to name a few), her giving has touched, and will continue to impact care and treatment for those experiencing medical adversity.
Her light is a beacon that shines, reminding us that our own light has the chance to shine, even amidst adversity.
Resiliency can occur in many ways. Her model of resilience exemplifies the impact of what can occur when someone else shows they believe in our successes before we can even dream them. It looks like challenging injustice and expanding our knowledge within the 9 to 5 grind.
Resilience reminds us that glass ceilings can be broken and that we can rise to new and inspiring personal heights, simply because someone had faith that we could, and then we believed we could.
Resilience comes from the daily content we choose to expose ourselves to-hope, instead of fear, connection instead of isolation and possibility instead of defeat.
And so even with the world processing and saying goodbye to an influential energy source, our stories continue to add new chapters, and that energy source is infinite.
Spend some quiet time in grief when you need to. Resilience may coexist with grief rather than waiting for it to appear somewhere in our futures. Tell your story in lyrics of life truth as Dolly modeled for us with honesty, passion and vulnerability—the true heartstrings of resilience.
