Just...No

I imagine it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, for someone who is not from the United States, and probably most specifically the southern region of this country, to understand how we feel about Dolly Parton. And I do not pretend to understand or know how anyone else feels about her but it is safe to say she is beloved. 
I say "is" even though she went on today. Doesn't make any difference. She is beloved and probably will be for eternity, at least around these parts. 
You know what a sacrilegious unbeliever I am but I know how I feel about Dolly Parton and that is she is an angel. A real true holy angel who somehow got put on this earth to grace it with her voice, her songwriting, her benevolence, her kindness, her philanthropy, her tenderness, her spark, her energy, her tenderness, her sass, her laugh, her non-judgmental loving acceptance of people who so many "religious" people call sinners even though if anyone was religious, it was Dolly, her belief in goodness, in the power of reading, in her love of family, her style, her courage, her belief in the equality of women, and her goddamn fingernails. 
The woman has given away over 300 million books to children all over the world. Do I really need to say more than that? 
In my opinion she did more for the people of this world than Mother Teresa ever imagined could be done and by god, she did it wearing rhinestones and heels and outrageous wigs and a grin as big as the Grand Canyon, bosoms as big as bountiful and plentiful as her waist was tiny. And she never once denied having plastic surgery. She wasn't ashamed of it. 
I remember when I used to work at the Birth Center here and would do post partum counseling and would get to the part about how, on about the third day the milk would come in for the mama, I would describe the experience as like waking up to having Dolly Parton bosoms. 
And everyone knew what I meant. 
I think Dolly's breasts had to be that big because if anyone who ever lived represented being a bounteous goddess of nurturing and love more than she did, I do not know who it would be, even though she never had children of her own. 

And it's been just so hard today, having heard this news. I was having a difficult day already and then to hear that Dolly had died was just about too much. It's one of those situations where I feel like if I let myself really start crying, I ain't ever gonna stop. 
I just told my husband that it feels like all the goodness in this world is being taken from us while the evil prevails. 
"That's one way to look at it," he said. 
He's right. And I am the sort of person who does look at it that way. I don't think it's a purposeful thing on the part of a god or the universe or any of that crap, I just think it is what it is. 

I would love to post a video of Dolly but I can't even think of a song that could possibly represent who she was. She was country, she was pop, she was occasionally rock, she was bluegrass, she was...well, she was Dolly. She had a million hits. 

I feel like REM in "Losing My Religion."
Oh no, I've said too much, I haven't said enough.

And yet, I haven't even touched the surface of what this woman means, did, or represented. 
And so I guess I'll post this video which may be one of her most recognized songs. Whitney Houston did a beautiful cover of it but Dolly wrote it. Dolly did it best. And in this video, she tells the story of how it came to be. 

God, this is ridiculously sappy but dammit, Dolly, we will always love you. 
Thanks for stopping by here on your way around this universe. 

And here's a picture of May taken in Chattanooga, Tennessee in front of a mural on the building where Dolly and her husband Carl Dean were married back in 1966. 

I believe that sort of says everything I wanted to say. 

Love...Ms. Moon