There’s a style rule my editors have tried to instill in me: to shy away from using the word “beloved” to describe someone. It’s a big word, one with powerful, indisputable meaning that risks being diminished if used flippantly or too often. I would venture there’s never been a more appropriate time to use it than now. The beloved icon—perhaps the most beloved—Dolly Parton died.
The singer. The songwriter. The actress. The humanitarian. The businesswoman. The natural comedienne. The universally adored entertainer.
Dolly Parton, at age 80, was as much the vibrant, beating heart of our culture as when she introduced herself with Hello, I’m Dolly almost 60 years ago, when she detonated music’s emotional atom bomb writing “I Will Always Love You,” and when her generous philanthropy, time and time again, saved us.
She was the resident bard of Americana, and the translator of our heartbreak, our jealousy, our pride, our love, and our humor. No one epitomized the holy trinity of fabulousness, godliness, and expertise with as much zeal and, in harmony, modesty.
There’s an instinct to call Parton the closest thing our country has to royalty, as the most significant gesture we can imagine to telegraph a person’s importance is to metaphorically coronate them. That seems both inadequate and illegitimate when it comes to Dolly.
I would say imagine the reaction if someone ever said something disparaging about Dolly Parton, but frankly, the notion is so ludicrous, veering to the point of impossible—as if the rules of the universe would never allow such a thing—that the hypothetical isn’t even worth raising.