The internet mourns Dolly Parton, country music’s brightest light

Dolly Parton, the country music legend who somehow felt less like a distant superstar and more like someone America collectively knew, has died, her family announced .

She was 80.

Parton's nephew Bryan Seaver announced her death in a video posted to her official social media accounts on Aug.

25.

He said Parton died peacefully in Nashville and that "Dolly has lived in the light and is in the arms of Jesus." A cause of death was not announced.

A small, private service will be held for her immediate family.

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Almost immediately, social media filled with the usual markers of collective grief: favorite songs, old interviews, movie scenes, personal stories, and declarations that this particular loss felt different.

But people were not only mourning the woman who gave the world "Jolene," "9 to 5," and "I Will Always Love You." They were mourning Dolly herself — the rhinestones, the one-liners, the enormous hair, the even bigger heart, and the uncanny ability to make millions of strangers feel as if she were rooting for them personally.

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Parton was one of the rare celebrities whose fame never appeared to place much distance between her and everyone else.

She spoke openly about growing up poor in a one-room cabin in Tennessee.