There are so many of you that I have to thank for helping me and my family successfully get through cancer. And it turns out one of you I have to thank is Dolly Parton. <3
Last winter, after being out of work basically since July, as I had endured six weeks of radiation and the first months of chemotherapy, it looked like we were soon going to run out of sick leave pay, with months of cancer treatment still ahead. So we set up an online store to sell some of my art prints, and many of you folks kindly bought some, which was a great relief. Then out of nowhere my sweetheart Kari Percival got a check in the mail.
After Kari’s first children’s book, “How to Say Hello to a Worm,” was published in 2022, it was amazingly picked up by Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, a literacy program that gives books to children ages birth to five. The program pays the publisher to print lots of books to give away—which results in a substantial check for the creator, often more than they were paid to make the book. That money was an amazing help to our family then, and it was such an honor to be part of this great program, a classic Dolly Parton effort, that quietly improves so many lives. Since Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library started in 1995, they have given away more than 300 million books. (The entire U.S. population is about 342 million.)
So last winter, as it looked looked like we were going to run out of sick leave pay, that check arrived out of the blue, a surprise, an amazing coincidence—a second check for Kari’s participation in Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. The money would miraculously cover all the months I’d not receive sick pay. In those dark days of cancer, in a moment of terrible worry and need for our family, it was an incredible relief. I know Dolly wasn’t directly picking the books and writing checks (I think), but it was due to the program that she had created to help people. And, goodness, it has helped us. <3
“In lieu of flowers,” when Dolly Parton died of cancer today at age 80, “the family asks for donations to be made to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library at imaginationlibrary.com.”
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