by Rachel Stewart

Last week, I talked about cowards and how it’s the one trait in humans I despise the most. But how about heroes?

Heroes are nice to have, but increasingly hard to find. And, of course, your choice is an insight into the qualities you venerate in others and maybe wish for yourself.

The media will relentlessly steer you towards who they want you to look up to – so many of them unworthy – but if you can find just one famous person in your lifetime to truly admire, you’re doing well.

So when the sister of my hero called out for prayers for her because she wasn’t doing well and was experiencing some health challenges, I thought she might be toast. Turns out she isn’t – and that the sister was simply using hillbilly prose to describe somebody just a bit under the weather – but I thought it was as a good time as any to praise my hero to the mountain tops. You never know when she might be leaving the porch.

So why Dolly Parton? The bombshell barbie who visits a plastic surgeon as often as you and I visit the fridge. Well, because under all of that is the most real and authentic person you’ll ever lay eyes on.

She knows what she is, who she is, and she ain’t making any apologies for that. She has been successful in her 60-year marriage to one man, in her multi-million-dollar businesses, and in her songwriting and music career.

Most people know that she wrote ‘I Will Always Love You’ which was covered beyond superbly by Whitney Houston for the movie ‘The Bodyguard’. But she has written screeds of hits for so many country stars and made their careers.

Many years before Whitney Houston covered that song Elvis Presley was a day away from recording it but wanted her to sign over half the publishing rights to his version. Dolly politely refused him and given her status versus his status in the music business at the time, it was a brave financial decision. But she never saw it that way. She saw it as the only choice. Turns out patience is a virtue and Whitney’s version certainly made up for that decision.

She married Carl Dean in 1966 and lost him earlier this year. He always preferred to stay out of the spotlight and there’s never been a hint of marital scandal or drama.

Dolly Parton has never done anything other than acknowledge her “dirt poor” roots in the Smoky Mountains of east Tennessee. One of twelve children she picked up a guitar and banjo early and the rest is history.

She is proud of her hillbilly roots saying, “to me that's not an insult. We were just mountain people. We were really redneck, roughneck, hillbilly people. And I'm proud of it.” She even embraces the term “white trash” saying that “Well it depends on who's calling me white trash and how they mean it. But we really were, to some degree. Because when you're that poor and you're not educated, you fall in those categories.”

That’s one grounded woman right there. And for me that is her secret sauce. I also love country music, so my young ear tuned in real fast to her sound.

So many gems. ‘Islands In The Stream’ with Kenny Rogers, ‘9 to 5’ from the movie of the same name. And don’t even get me started on ‘Jolene’!

All this and I haven’t even mentioned her legendary philanthropy. She gives away hundreds of millions to children’s literacy programmes, and when the devastating 2016 fire in the Great Smoky Mountains hit she helped to fund new homes for those who’d lost them.

Thank God for Dolly Parton and for everything she is and everything she’s given us.

I’m gonna leave you with her signature song which honours her childhood, her mother, and her faith.