Something occurred to me yesterday after
hearing that Dolly Parton had died. I lost another little piece of my mom.
My mom loved Dolly Parton. When I was a
little boy, Dolly seemed to be everywhere. She was on our television, on the
radio, on the movie screen and in my memories of Dolly was my mom.
That is the funny thing about getting older.
Television shows, songs, movies, famous people, restaurants, buildings… they all
become little storage boxes for our memories.
Then one of them disappears, and suddenly
you are not only mourning what disappeared, you are remembering who was
standing beside you when it was still here.
Yesterday, for me, that was Mom and because
I believe heaven works the way I pray it does, I had another thought that made
me smile.
Yesterday my Ma finally got to meet Dolly. I assume
she told her how much she enjoyed her while some chubby little kid was running
around the house getting into something he wasn't supposed to.
That brought me back to Dolly's quote on
today's Chalkboard:
“Find out who you are and
do it on purpose.”
Maybe finding out who we are is not a great
revelation that arrives one morning. Maybe we find ourselves slowly. Through
our parents, our children, our friends, our mentors. The people we love and the
people we have lost.
The people whose example quietly gets stuck
inside us and then, eventually, we have to decide what we are going to do with
all of it.
Dolly knew who she was.
She came from almost nothing, became one of
the most famous women in the world, and somehow always remained Dolly. She also
spent a good part of her life helping other people. Through literacy programs,
disaster relief and causes that often had nothing to do with putting her name
in bright lights.
Most of us will never have Dolly Parton money. We
don’t need it. What we have are opportunities.
An opportunity to help people in our lives that are having a crisis without announcing to the world that we helped them. To make
another person's stay on this planet just a little bit better. That is part of
finding out who we are.
Every day gives us another chance to
answer the question. When my turn is over, I would like the answer to be pretty
simple. He was a pretty decent character. He wasn't a jagoff. He noticed
people. He gave a damn and once in a while, somebody's day was a little better
because he happened to be there.
So today, Chalkheads, find out who you are
and then do it on purpose.
…And somewhere up there
Ma, if you did meet
Dolly yesterday, tell her thanks for me and all you got to do is smile that
smile…
