There is a pink, heart-shaped sticker on the face of the laptop I am typing this on.

“What would Dolly do?” I've looked at it a thousand times. Today, it seems larger than ever. Dolly Parton died Aug. 25 in Nashville. She was 80 years old.

I was in the same room with Dolly once. But we never sat down for coffee. She never called me “honey.” I never got to tell her what her music meant to me, or how many times her voice had found me exactly where I was.

And yet, saying I didn't know Dolly doesn't seem true either.

Because she has been by my side and in my ear through some of the best and worst days of my life.

She was there for the road trips and the girlfriends and the laughter. She was there for falling in love and staying in love.

For raising babies and watching them grow up. For the seasons when life felt full and beautiful—and for the ones when it abdid not.

There were songs for all of it.

That's the strange intimacy of music. Someone you have never sat across from can know the deepest parts of you. A woman you've never shared a cup of coffee with can put words to something you've been carrying around in your chest and couldn't explain yourself.

Dolly did that for me. For a lot of us. She felt like an old friend. A big sister. That woman a few steps ahead of you who had already learned some things the hard way and wasn't afraid to tell you about them—with a wink, a laugh and probably a little more lipstick than the occasion required. She had been around for so much of my life that I don't really remember a world without her in it.

There were songs for all of it. Songs about being poor and still knowing you were rich in all the ways that mattered. Songs about working hard and being fed up. Songs about women who loved the wrong man, women afraid of losing the right one and women strong enough to say goodbye even when they still loved somebody. Songs about home. Songs about faith. Songs about dreams. Songs about heartbreak. Songs that could make you laugh and songs that could absolutely wreck you.

And then there was Dolly herself. The hair. The nails. The rhinestones. The heels. That laugh.

Lord, that laugh. She was unapologetically feminine in a world that often tells women they have to tone themselves down to be taken seriously. Dolly never toned down a thing. She could walk into a room looking like a million dollars—and then outsmart everybody in it.

She built an empire while making jokes about her own appearance. She knew exactly what people saw when they looked at her, and she was usually the first one to make the joke.

But make no mistake: behind all that blonde hair was a brilliant songwriter, a shrewd businesswoman and a woman who never forgot where she came from. She came out of the mountains of East Tennessee, one of 12 children in a family without much money, and carried those mountains with her everywhere she went. She didn't run from her beginnings. She made them part of the story.

Maybe that's one of the things I loved most about her. Dolly never seemed ashamed of who she had been in order to celebrate who she became. And maybe that's why women like me connected with her. She understood that life can be messy. You can have regrets and still have a future. You can have your heart broken and still love again. You can come from very little and build something enormous.

You can be soft without being weak. You can believe in God and still admit you've made mistakes. You can laugh at yourself without letting anybody make you feel small.

And you can put on a little lipstick and keep going. There were songs for all of that, too. My girlfriends and I have certainly done our part to keep Dolly woven into our own memories. In the summer of 2022, we headed to Nashville together. Our airport outfits? Matching “I Beg Your Parton” T-shirts. Of course they were. Just some girlfriends on a road trip. It wasn't our last.

A year ago, we went back to Nashville to see Dolly's musical before it was released on Broadway. And because apparently going to see a Dolly Parton musical wasn't enough Dolly for us, we stayed in the Dolly House near Music Row.

We laughed. We stayed up too late.We took pictures. We made memories. The kind of memories that don't seem particularly historic while you're making them. They're just fun.

Until enough time passes. Then you realize those ordinary, ridiculous, wonderful moments with people you love are the things that actually made up your life.

There were songs for those days, too. That's what makes this loss feel so strange. I wasn't finished making Dolly memories.

I'm not even 50 yet.In fact, I've already been making plans to celebrate my 50th birthday at Dollywood with my girls.

Fifty. Dollywood. My girlfriends. It seemed perfect. It still does.We'll just have to go without her now. That thought has me tearing up.

But I suspect Dolly would have something to say about sitting around crying too long. Because for all the heartbreak she wrote about, Dolly Parton was never really selling sadness.

She was selling hope. She believed tomorrow could be better. She believed poor children deserved books. She believed where you were born didn't determine where you could go. She believed you could make something beautiful out of something painful. And she put her money behind those beliefs.

Through her Imagination Library, millions of books found their way into the hands of children. Through Dollywood and her other businesses, she poured jobs and opportunity back into the mountains that raised her. When wildfires devastated her beloved Sevier County, she helped families rebuild. She gave generously, often without making herself the center of the story.

Maybe that's the answer to the question staring back at me from the pink heart on my laptop.

What would Dolly do? She'd help somebody. She'd keep going. She'd find something to laugh about. She'd probably add another rhinestone.

And I feel fairly certain she'd tell us not to cancel the trip. So when 50 gets here, I still plan to go to Dollywood with my girls. Maybe we'll wear matching shirts again. We'll laugh too loudly. We'll take too many pictures. We'll probably buy something pink and sparkly that none of us needs. And we'll remember her. Not just the superstar. Not just the woman who sold millions of records, starred in movies, wrote extraordinary songs and built a business empire.

We'll remember the woman who somehow made us feel like we knew her. Because I think that's what I'm grieving. An old friend. A big sister. A voice that has been around for as long as I can remember. I was in the same room with Dolly Parton once.

But we never sat down for coffee. Still, she sat with me through heartbreak. She rode along on road trips. She sang through celebrations. She was there in seasons of becoming, losing, rebuilding and learning to laugh again.

There were songs for all of it.