Every good person I know is grieving

November 6, 2026
—
Originally published in Issue No. 15 of The Bitter Southerner Magazine

As of today she flew home
And we all gathered here in sorrow and tears
It won’t be the same with her gone.

— Dolly Parton, “Let Her Fly”

The birds felt it too the wave of grief that rose from the hollers and coves from the creekbanks and churches from city streets and wherever they gathered to begin her long wake. She was the best of us they said she was the parts of us we’ve forgotten. She was ours they said. The othered the unwanted the hurt. She belonged to us more than anybody else yet we shared her with the world.

The first time I ever saw her. A little boy who needed glasses and always sat too near the massive floor-model TV. I am six. There she is in a swing hanging from the studio rafters smiling and singing Love is like a butterfly.  I don’t know who I am yet but already a chord is struck and hums within me like a tuning fork.

Costume change: a dress like rose petals mic in hand stomping her foot a wink. Baby I’m burning out of control. I could not sit still. I twirled around the living room and my aunt said calm down now or you’ll knock the pipes loose under the trailer but she was grinning and smoking and then she got up and snapped her fingers moved her hips tilted back her head and closed her eyes lost to the music.

When I heard the news I became quiet and stayed that way all day. I went to the creek where the water was singing. Every good person I knew was grieving. The mountains were in mourning but they were singing her songs and crying in Calcutta too. The Buckingham Palace guards played her song on their horns in their red coats and furry black hats. Schoolchildren in Queens sang. A woman stood on her porch and sang. People came out to listen. Singing singing. Dancing. The pubs of Dublin and Belfast. Bars in New York City. The streets of Paris and Tokyo and Tehran and Kiev. They sang they sang they sang. She’s an eagle when she flies and wildflowers don’t care where they grow and I will always love you.

The birds felt it all. They went silent. They sang along. So did the creek the kudzu the leaves in the breeze of grief that passed through. The ghost of my aunt wandering the lake shore. My mother her same age unable to breathe. Sorrow sorrow. 

The flow of time is a mystery like a spring in the most secret part of the mountains existing in layers.

If so a little boy is watching her on that swing. He is dancing with his aunt. He is listening to his mother sing Coat of Many Colors while she washes dishes and he loves her so much he cannot stand it. He is line-dancing to Romeo at a rough old honkytonk. He is belting out Yellow Roses while he drives winding roads with all the windows down. He is watching a drag queen balance a wig heavy as that old television while she pantomimes Jolene. He is writing to The Grass is Blue. He is falling in love with his husband all over again when he hears him singing Pure and Simple. He is on a rollercoaster that goes so high he can see the Smokies. He is sitting by this creek grieving.

If so she is using poke berries to make rouge she is writing her first song she is singing on the street wearing a dress her mother sewed. She loves its Peter Pan collar. She is walking into the laundromat where she will meet Carl she is stepping out onto the stage at the Ryman. She is singing. She is memorizing an entire script she is on a red carpet she is with her brothers and sisters she is giving her money away she is singing she is singing.

And now she is wading in the creek with her eyes on the last light playing in the leaves she is lying down in plush cotton she is become the mist over the mountains she is the hush at the cool of the day she is the birds in the trees she is the breeze in the leaves she is singing singing singing. She always will be.