Just a month ago, news feeds were full of memorials for Dolly Parton’s passing. While the headlines may have moved on, if you find yourself tearing up at a song in the grocery store or feeling the loss more now than you did in the first few days, you are not “behind.” You may be grieving on a different timeline than the news cycle. A month is a long time in the news but almost no time at all in grief. Early on, many people feel numb, busy, or in shock when they are in grief. As time moves on, the weight might actually get heavier when the noise quiets and there is space to feel all of it.

What Is Grief?

Grief is a word we use loosely, but therapists separate it into different but related terms. Bereavement is simply the fact of having lost someone. Grief is what happens inside you afterward, which can be waves of emotion, physical exhaustion, brain fog, and even questions about meaning or faith. Mourning is how all of that is expressed, through our songs, stories, and rituals. None of these move on a schedule, and there is no one right way to do it (Worden, 2018).

You may have heard of the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. This model originated with the pioneering grief researcher Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1969). While it is tempting to see this as a sequence of steps, Kübler-Ross did not intend it to be a linear process but rather a web of emotions that individuals traverse as feelings arise. It might involve sitting with pain instead of rushing through it, slowly adjusting to a life that looks different now, or finding new ways to stay connected to who they were (Worden, 2018). Many people maintain an ongoing bond with someone they have lost, and that bond can be a source of comfort rather than something to be completed (Klass et al., 1996). This is true for many folks after Dolly’s passing.

Individuals are grieving her in different ways. Some lost a favorite singer, others lost a symbol of Appalachian pride. Some lost an unapologetic ally for LGBTQ+ folks, others lost a role model for a life of legacy for younger generations. There are three populations in particular that we will focus on, who found solace in Dolly because she represented belonging, visibility, and alternative legacy. You don’t need to have met her for her life and death to affect your identity or sense of belonging.

The Dolly Who Sounded Like Home

 Dolly didn’t just come from this part of the world, she returned to it in her songs and her investment in eastern Tennessee. Some of the common values in Appalachian culture are family ties, storytelling, faith, and a sense of shared heritage. Sometimes we grieve a person because they carry a place inside them. Losing Dolly may feel, for some, like a piece of home has gone quiet. For many in the region, she wasn’t just a famous person from Appalachia, she was someone who told the world what it meant to be from here, and who made that identity something to be proud of rather than something to leave behind. This kind of layered loss, grieving a person and a piece of your own identity at once, can be harder to name, and naming it is often the first step toward feeling less weighed down by it.

The Dolly Who Made Room

Dolly talked openly about loving and accepting her LGBTQ+ fanbase. These fans recognized the rarity of an outspoken celebrity promoting inclusion, especially given Dolly’s roots as a rural Southern singer from a Christian background. For some LGBTQ+ fans, that has particular significance because of life experiences of family rejection, religious trauma, or feeling like an other. When an ally who helped you feel seen dies, the grief can touch something deeper than fandom. It can stir old fears about who will make room now, or old memories of times when there was a lack of advocacy or support. It makes sense if this loss feels tangled up with other things you have carried for a long time because grief has a way of pulling old feelings back to the surface.

The Dolly Who Showed a Different Kind of Family

Dolly was quoted as having tried to have children without success and eventually shifted that dream to support other children in her life, and founded the Imagination Library, which provides free books to children (Interview, 2026). This might speak to individuals experiencing infertility or involuntary childlessness who are grieving the family they hoped to have. Because there is no child or family that others can see as having been lost, the absence of the hoped-for family may be difficult for others to recognize as a legitimate loss. Therapists call this “disenfranchised grief” because the invisible absence may receive little social acknowledgment or support (Doka, 1989). Women who are navigating a life that did not go as planned have an example in Dolly of a life that can be full, loving, and generative without being the life one pictured. It is worth remembering that a loss does not need to be visible to others for it to be real and worth tending.

Dolly was a larger-than-life figure and helped demonstrate that we can grieve what a person represents and the parts of ourselves we recognize in them. Whether or not you identify with one or more of these groups, there is room for any form of grief that you might feel about her passing.

We Don’t Have to Get Over Dolly

The news cycle may have changed, but that might be when grief becomes more personal. Dolly belonged to a lot of people, but that does not mean everyone grieves her the same way. It means that when someone is woven into our identity, community, or dreams, their absence can reveal something more significant. Carrying grief does not have to mean carrying only sadness, it can also mean carrying a song, a place, or a reminder that a life doesn’t have to look the way we expected for it to be meaningful. If a loss has been weighing heavily on you, we’re here to help you carry it. To connect with a Matone clinician, reach out to our team.

When Grief Needs More Support

If your grief feels persistently overwhelming or is disrupting your sleep, work, or relationships, then it may be time to reach out for support. Grief is not a disorder by itself but it can reopen feelings related to past losses or exacerbate anxiety or depression. Seeking therapy does not mean you are grieving wrong. Often, it simply gives grief a place to go and a person who can help you make sense of it.

Article by: Christina Farber

Christina Farber
Christina Farber is a Clinical Mental Health Counseling Intern who brings a compassionate, collaborative, and empathetic approach to counseling. She is pursuing a Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of the Cumberlands and previously earned a Master’s of Public Policy Management from Carnegie Mellon University.
Before entering the counseling field, Christina spent more than 12 years working in corporate, federal, and nonprofit sectors. These experiences affirmed her passion for

References

Doka, K. J. (Ed.). (1989). Disenfranchised grief: Recognizing hidden sorrow. Lexington Books.

Interview. (2026, August 25). A look back at Dolly Parton’s rhinestoned life. Interview Magazine. https://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/dolly-parton-interview-andy-warhol-william-stadiem-music-rhinestone-in-memoriam

Klass, D., Silverman, P.R., & Nickman, S. (Eds.). (1996). Continuing bonds: New understandings of grief. Taylor & Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315800790

Kübler-Ross, E. (1970). On death and dying. Collier Books/Macmillan Publishing Co.

Worden, J. W. (2018). Grief counseling and grief therapy: A handbook for the mental health practitioner. Springer Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1891/9780826134752