For many of us, the summer is ending in a paroxysm of grief. Perennials we believed would last forever have perished.

Over mere weeks, we lost a legendary performer, a feminist trailblazer and a living memorial.

I never met Dolly Parton, but I feel as if I knew her. Don’t we all? And while I heard her perform many times, it was her acting debut in the 1980 film “9 to 5,” playing a harassed assistant to a sexist boss, that endeared her to me. Because in the ’80s, before the Me Too movement, we all had that boss.

She also wrote the film’s rallying song: “Workin’ 9 to 5, what a way to make a livin’. Barely getting by, it’s all taking and no givin’. They just use your mind and they never give you credit. It’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it.”

While Parton stayed apolitical for the most part, she was not unpartisan toward causes. She championed literacy, medical research and disaster relief and provided scholarships to kids in need. She was also a firm supporter of the LGBTQ+ community and Black Lives Matter.

She didn’t call herself a feminist, but as Ms. magazine founding editor Gloria Steinem wrote in the magazine’s Women of the Year issue in January 1987, “People who haven’t listened to Dolly Parton or to feminism may be surprised to learn that they go together. In fact, she has crossed musical class lines to bring work, real life and strong women into a world of pop music usually dominated by unreal romance.”

She was also a writer — like Steinem, who died at the start of this month. I heard the second wave feminist speak many times and marched with her for the Equal Rights Amendment and reproductive freedom.

My husband, Dean Skylar, and I were featured in Ms. magazine. A July 1983 article described how we sued our then-home state of Florida for the right to name our child a combined surname. The state law decreed that if a couple were married, the child must have the father’s last name. We won the case, changing name law when the judge ruled parents have “a constitutionally protected right to choose the name of their child.”

Years later, I met Steinem at a news meeting and asked her to sign a copy of her book “Revolution from Within” for my daughter, Rachel Skybetter. She wrote: “To Rachel, who is our future!” and signed it, “Gloria Steinem 2007.”

The next year, Rachel would intern at Ms. Her cover letter began: “You may not know it, but my name’s already been published in your magazine.”

Besides losing Parton and Steinem, this is the summer our national arts center became comatose.

The Kennedy Center, where Parton received her 2006 honors, has endured two years of assaults from President Donald Trump.

Artists and audiences have fled, public tours have been curtailed, and staff and board members have been fired.

A sculpture installed in 2019 titled Blue by artist Joel Shapiro was removed at the beginning of September, although no reason was given. It was recently purchased by the Kennedy Center’s Trump-ousted board chairman, David Rubenstein, to be displayed in the Sculpture Garden of the National Gallery of Art.

Even while Trump has fought to affix his name to the center’s facade twice, he recently threatened to close the institution after a chunk of ceiling fell over the grand foyer.

I spent hundreds of hours at the Kennedy Center watching legendary artists give now mythical performances such as Aretha Franklin singing “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” to honor Carole King in 2015, bringing President Barack Obama to tears. I saw Heart perform “Stairway to Heaven” for Led Zeppelin, causing Robert Plant to cry.

My son’s dance company performed on the Millennium Stage. Enjoying theater, dance, jazz, hip-hop, opera, comedy and classical music at the center was a huge part of my Washington experience and millions of others’.

The grief over losing Steinem, Parton and the Kennedy Center feels insurmountable. How can they be replaced?

Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that two people and an institution that made the world so much better died under the presidency of someone who has made it so much worse. The causes they championed — diversity, literacy, artistic and personal freedom — have been strangled under the Trump reign.

While Parton never spoke about Trump, Steinem certainly did. She called him a “ridiculously small, insecure man with cotton candy hair” in 2016 and “harasser in chief” in 2017. Recently, she suggested he resign.

Still, both Parton and Steinem took the long view of history in troubled times.

“Storms make trees take deeper roots,” Parton said.

And Steinem, undeterred by the backsliding on women’s rights, said, “Politics and deep change and, you know, everything we’re trying to do is like a tree, and too often we think the tree grows from the top, from Congress. Trees grow from the bottom, so what you and I do every day.”

This then is our challenge. After the mourning, we must get back to work. Plant new perennials so that next summer brings us not grief but celebration.

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Christine Ledbetter is a former senior arts editor at The Washington Post who lives in Illinois, where she writes about culture and politics.

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