On the Loss of Wendell and Dolly
Photo by Bill Carroll
Sometimes I feel like I’m barely hanging on in this cruel and fractured world.
Then Dolly and Wendell die in the same week. (And now, Annie Dillard. It feels too much. For more on Annie, I recommend reading Winn Collier’s essay.)
What a ripped hole these brilliant humans leave in the universe, these rare unifiers in a divided country. The world seems less gentle, sane, and winsome without Dolly and Wendell.
The first line of Wendell’s The Peace of Wild Things echoes in my heart. “When despair for the world grows in me. . .” Dolly and Wendell were there to recalibrate me.
Known primarily for her amazing music, Dolly captured my heart with her Imagination Library, gifting books to children around the world from birth to age five. More than 330 million books over 30 years. She loved her place and her people. She was the largest employer in Sevier County and gave monthly financial aid to county families hit hard by wildfire until they could get back on their feet. She also helped fund Covid vaccine research.
I love her for staying connected to her family and for her 60-plus-year marriage. I always notice long loves.
I love her authenticity even with her wigs and enhancements.
Kathryn Schulz in the New Yorker writes, “The self she showed off was utterly armored and utterly disarming—and boy, did the world go for it. I have never encountered anyone, of any age, race, class, gender, or taste in music, who didn’t at minimum admire and more adore her—her songs, her movies, her moxie, her morals, which seemed so loose yet proved so deep and durable.”
I also love her for not taking herself too seriously. Schulz writes, “She once entered a Dolly Parton look-alike contest on the sly and lost, to a man.”
I have loved Dolly from afar, but Wendell Berry is deep in my bones.
In a world that doesn’t make sense, Wendell helps me see humanity with more kindness.
With his essays, he makes me see the world as beautiful and fragile, and that we have choices to make.
With his fiction, I, who have lived in eight states and 14 houses, could imagine being rooted in one place, with generations of relationships. A place where I was known—my history, failings, and foibles. A place where my brokenness would be seen without surprise and with gentle humor.
With his poetry, he raised my view of Sabbath and put words to long love. This was for his wife, Tanya.
The Wild Rose
Sometimes hidden from me
in daily custom and in trust,
so that I live by you unaware
as by the beating of my heart,
suddenly you flare in my sight,
a wild rose blooming at the edge
of thicket, grace and light
where yesterday was only shade,
and once more I am blessed,
choosing again what I chose before.
I saw him 14 years ago at Samford University’s Wright Center. I thought he was my hidden gem, but 900 fans packed the auditorium. He read from a yellow legal pad and stayed for hours to sign books. My autographed Hannah Coulter is a treasured possession.
What were the common threads between them? In a world where empathy and tolerance have become offensive words, Dolly and Wendell pushed back. They reminded me to be human and humane.
They were themselves. Dolly, never forgetting her dirt-poor roots, and Wendell, choosing a small farm life in Kentucky.
They were faithful, steady, walking a long obedience in the same direction.
They were gifted beyond 99.5% of us and didn’t waste an ounce of it.
They knew who they were and stayed in their lanes, except they were seven-lane highways compared to my single-track dirt bike path.
Dolly was a singer/songwriter, actress, author, philanthropist, entrepreneur, visionary, comedian. Wendell was a poet, essayist, fiction writer, teacher, farmer, lobbyist, protestor.
I keep asking, “How can I be more like Wendell and Dolly?” I imagine them smiling and telling me that’s the wrong question. “How will you be more like Nancy?”
What’s my lane? How can I be consistent, brave, and generous in that space?
For me, it starts with laughter, kindness, and clapping. Taking time to see people. Writing small truths with deep love.
But I’m still tempted to buy a wig and overalls.
An excerpt from Some Further Words by Wendell Berry on the desire to be a true human being:
Think of the genius of the animals,
every one truly what it is:
gnat, fox, minnow, swallow, each made
of light and luminous within itself.
They know (better than we do) how
to live in the places where they live.
And so I would like to be a true
human being, dear reader—a choice
not altogether possible now.
But this is what I’m for, the side
I’m on. And this is what you should
expect of me, as I expect it of myself,
though for realization we may wait
a thousand or a million years.
How can you be more like Wendell and Dolly? And they would ask, how can you be a true human being? How can you be more yourself?