I’m having as hard a time letting go of Dolly Parton as I did letting go of DeForest Kelley. And I knew DeForest Kelley as a friend and mentor and loved him totally. I felt completely safe with him. (This is rare for me.)

But because I knew De personally, I was able to work through my grief by writing about him.  So, I did that for years while the sadness of losing him played itself out, leaving me finally with only smile-inducing, happy memories of our friend- and allyship!

I can’t do that with Dolly.  So, I feel stuck in a sorrow that has floored me. It’s almost inexplainable.

The thing is…

I just didn’t realize how much I loved Dolly while she was alive! I knew it about De so I was able to express it to him directly in ways wild, weird and wonderful. If you’ve read any of my books or articles about him, you know all about that.

I’m not a country music fan  

I’m not even celebrity-focused. Wasn’t with De, and wasn’t with Dolly.

I resonate with soul light — that ineffable something about them both that radiated, “I love you, warts and all. You matter to me.”

The Dalai Lama has that. Jesus had that.

Sometimes all you need to know 

…is that someone else on the planet feels this way about you, whether they’ve met you or not.  They’re humane to everyone they meet. They realize everyone is suffering in some form or fashion, from their closest loved ones to their staunchest rivals or perceived enemies.

They don’t take their chance encounters for granted

I think that both Dolly and DeForest would be amazed to learn how enormous their “fan following” was following their passing. So many people just didn’t realize how fond they were of them until it was too late to tell them.

And maybe that’s the lesson for those of us who are still above ground.

Tell the People You Love That You Love Them

Many of us do this with our truly significant others (alas, sometimes even these get too frequently overlooked by taking them for granted!) but we don’t think about reaching out to the hundreds/thousands of others who have improved (at times saved!) our lives with their music, books, interviews, insights, humor, and more.

Dolly Parton was one of those people for me

…and I will always regret that I didn’t let her know. My note would have been one among tens of thousands of others, and therefore not all that significant in the grand scheme of things to her, but it would have meant the world to me that I took the time to do it.

I regret the ten or fifteen minutes that I didn’t spend letting her know that I loved her. Perhaps I figured she had received enough love from others, so mine was a drop in the bucket. But it was MY drop.  The drop I regret not dropping.

Don’t let this happen to you.

Tell the people you love that you love them, whether you know them or not. One note a day for a year. If you run out of  people to send notes to, you’ll be amazed. There will always be someone else.

Maybe someone you loved once and now will not invite back into your life for some reason.  You loved them once. It would mean the world for them to know that.

Life is too short for everyone to assume that you have plenty of time to get to this. Like Dolly, they could be gone tomorrow.

Let your love and appreciation flow to them while you still can.