I have loved Dolly Parton for as long as I can remember.
I love her music. There are Dolly songs I’ve heard a hundred times that can still bring tears to my eyes. She had this ability to take something deeply human, put it into a few minutes of music, and make you feel like she somehow knew exactly what it felt like to be you.
I loved her sense of humor, too. It could get a little dicey sometimes, which may be another reason I liked her. She could laugh at herself, and she usually got to the joke about the hair, boobs, makeup or clothes before anybody else did.
I loved her in so many movies that I probably couldn’t name them all, but a few immediately come to mind: The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias, Rhinestone, 9 to 5 and Dumplin’. If Dolly was in it, chances are I was going to watch it.
But somewhere along the way, Dolly became more than someone I enjoyed watching or listening to. She became one of my heroes.
My sister and I once took our mom to see Dolly in concert, and it is still one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to. There was Dolly, running around the stage, playing instrument after instrument, with so much energy it was hard to believe she was 70 years old at the time.
But the part I remember most was when she slowed everything down. Before she sang a song, she would sit and tell us its story: where it came from, who inspired it and what it meant to her. Then she would sing it, and somehow the song meant more because you knew the story behind it.
Looking back, I think I understand why I loved that so much. I’m a storyteller, too.
I don’t have Dolly’s voice, obviously. Nobody is paying to hear me sing anything, which is probably best for everyone involved. But I understand wanting to take a memory, a person, something funny, something painful or something beautiful and turn it into a story that makes somebody else feel something.
And I got to share that night with my mom and my sister. We always hoped we would see Dolly together again. We never did, and now we never will. That hits differently today, but mostly, it makes me grateful that we got that one night together. A concert became a memory, and now it is one I’ll carry with me.
The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized that what I admired most about Dolly was more than just her music; it was how she lived.
She loved where she came from. She loved her family. She gave generously. She made people laugh. She could talk about hard things without making everything feel hopeless. In a world where almost everything eventually becomes something people fight about, Dolly spent decades bringing people together.
She put light into the world, and maybe that’s why losing her feels like more than losing a singer I loved.
One of the things I’ve always admired about Dolly is that she seemed able to walk into every room as Dolly. She didn’t adjust herself to fit the room.
I wasn’t always that way. When I was younger, I was much more likely to read the room and adjust myself accordingly. I cared more about what people thought, as most of us do when we’re younger. But at 55, I think I’ve finally learned to enter the room a little more like Dolly: as myself.
I’ll never have Dolly’s voice or rhinestones. My hair will never be as big as hers either, although it gave Dolly a respectable run for her money in the ’80s. And the six-inch heels? With my level of gracefulness, those would end with an ambulance and an interesting story for the ER staff.
But the rest of it? That I can work toward.
Lainey Wilson has a song called “WWDD”(What Would Dolly Do?). I love that question because maybe we could all be a little more Dolly.
I don’t mean the rhinestones or the big hair, although I’ve already established that I had my moment with the hair. I mean the way she moved through the world.
Dolly seemed inherently good and full of light. She created a spark in people, whether it was through a song that touched something in them, her incredible generosity or simply the way she talked about life. She reminded people to be kind, to love each other, to love themselves and not to take life, or themselves, quite so seriously.
And I think we could all be a little more like that.
Dolly talked about what she called the “God spark,” the idea that there is a little bit of that light in each of us. She talked about asking God to help her do or say something that might matter to somebody else.
Maybe that’s what I’ve been seeing in her all these years. And maybe being a little more Dolly is simply being willing to let your own God spark shine.
For me, maybe that means telling the stories I have to tell and making somebody laugh on a hard day. It means loving my people well, helping when I can and looking for the good in people, even when it would be easier not to. When life is painful, scary or just plain ridiculous, I want to keep looking for some light in it and, if I can, help somebody else see it too.
So maybe the question isn’t only, “What would Dolly do?” Maybe it’s also: What am I supposed to do with the spark God gave me?
I’m still figuring that part out, but at 55, I think I’m finally brave enough to try. And maybe that is one of the best ways we can honor people who put light into the world while they’re here: by keeping some of it going.
The hair, though? I’m leaving that in the ’80s.
Anyway—Off We Go.™
Photo note: The concert photo is a real photo of me with my mom and sister when we saw Dolly Parton in concert. The “What Would Dolly Do?” image is AI-generated artwork created for this essay.
© 2026 Erica Shoemaker. All rights reserved.
