In the final days of Dolly Parton’s life, her younger sister Stella says she saw something that brought her comfort.

Not fear.

Not panic.

Peace.

Weeks after the country music legend died at age 80 following what her representatives described as a “brief battle with cancer,” Stella Parton is sharing an intimate glimpse of Dolly’s state of mind near the end — and explaining why she believes her sister knew exactly what was ahead.

“I know she was at peace,” Stella said during a Sept. 10 appearance on CBS Mornings.

For Stella, that confidence did not come from a formal conversation about death.

It came from knowing her sister.

She said the two were close enough that she could often tell how Dolly was feeling simply by looking at her face — even when they had not seen each other in person for months.

“She was definitely prepared,” Stella said.

And according to Stella, Dolly found particular comfort in one thought: that she would be reunited with the parents she had lost years earlier.

Stella Says She Could Read Dolly’s Face

Dolly died on Aug. 25 after a private health battle that even many members of her own extended family did not fully understand.

When host Gayle King asked Stella whether Dolly had been at peace before her death, Stella answered without hesitation.

She explained that she had spent a lifetime reading her sister’s emotions.

Whether Dolly was happy, hurt, angry, tired or sad, Stella believed she could see it.

That connection came from growing up together in the famously large Parton family and remaining emotionally close throughout their adult lives.

Stella said Dolly knew where she believed she was going.

In Stella’s words, her sister expected to be with “Momma and Daddy.”

The comment reveals a very different picture of Dolly’s final days from the public uncertainty surrounding her health at the time.

Fans knew she had experienced health challenges.

What most did not know was how serious the situation had become.

Dolly Kept the Cancer Secret From Much of Her Family

Stella also explained why so few people knew what Dolly was facing.

According to her, the secrecy was deliberate.

Dolly did not want fans worrying about her.

She did not want relatives becoming frightened or overwhelmed.

And she did not want her illness to become the focus of the public conversation surrounding her.

“Some of us knew, the ones that were closer, but not every relative,” Stella said.

That detail is particularly striking considering how public Dolly’s life had been for more than six decades.

She had spent most of adulthood being recognized almost everywhere she went.

Millions of people knew her songs, her clothes, her jokes and the story of her childhood in rural Tennessee.

Yet one of the most consequential developments of her life remained confined to a remarkably small circle.

Even in illness, Stella says, Dolly was thinking less about herself than about how the news would affect everyone else.

Four Days Before Her Death, Dolly Was Still Talking About Work

The privacy surrounding her cancer also helps explain why Dolly’s final public comments now feel so poignant.

Just four days before she died, she spoke with PEOPLE about her health and the projects she still hoped to complete.

She acknowledged that she had been through “hard times” physically, but her message remained characteristically forward-looking.

Despite still recovering, Dolly said she was continuing to work and still had many things she wanted to accomplish.

She discussed entertainment projects, philanthropy and even future performances.

Nothing in the tone of those comments publicly announced that death was imminent.

Instead, Dolly sounded much like she always had: determined to keep creating for as long as possible.

That makes Stella’s account especially revealing.

Publicly, Dolly was talking about what she still hoped to do.

Privately, Stella believes her sister had also accepted the possibility that there might not be much time left.

Those two realities apparently existed together.

She Even Considered Helping Others Through Experimental Treatment

One of the most extraordinary details Stella has shared since Dolly’s death concerns a conversation about medical treatment.

According to Stella, Dolly told her that if doctors reached a point where there was no hope for her own recovery, she would still be willing to let her medical team try experimental drugs on her.

The reason was not that she expected them to save her.

She hoped the information might someday help someone else.

For Stella, that conversation captured something essential about her sister.

She described Dolly as one of the most generous and thoughtful people she had ever known and said the public image of the compassionate country star was not an act.

“What the world saw is exactly who she was,” Stella wrote after her death.

That generosity had been visible for decades through programs such as Dolly’s Imagination Library and her many charitable efforts.

But Stella’s story suggests that instinct remained present even when Dolly herself was facing the most serious health crisis of her life.

The Sisters Still Had Their Tuesday Coffee Ritual

Behind the enormous career, Dolly and Stella also maintained a much simpler tradition.

For years, the sisters had regular Tuesday morning coffee conversations over the phone.

Stella described them as their “kaffeklatsch” — early-morning chats that reflected the habits they had developed growing up on a Tennessee farm.

They would talk, gossip, make plans and laugh.

After Dolly died, Stella admitted that those Tuesday mornings would never feel the same.

The ritual helps explain why Stella speaks with such certainty about her sister’s emotional state.

She did not know Dolly only as an international celebrity.

She knew the woman who called before sunrise for coffee.

She knew her expressions.

She knew her humor.

And she knew the family shorthand that had existed long before anyone outside Tennessee knew the name Dolly Parton.

Grief Had Already Been Following Dolly

Dolly’s final years had included significant personal loss.

Her husband of nearly six decades, Carl Dean, died in March 2025.

She later acknowledged that caring for him had contributed to her postponing some of her own health concerns. In August 2026, she told PEOPLE that she had failed to pay attention to certain issues while she was focused on Carl.

Public concern about Dolly’s health increased after she postponed and later canceled her Las Vegas residency.

She had previously discussed kidney problems, immune-system issues and treatments that left her feeling unsteady.

But the cancer diagnosis itself remained largely private until after her death.

That secrecy was exactly what Dolly wanted, according to Stella.

She did not want people waiting anxiously for updates.

She wanted them enjoying the music, the projects and the joy she had spent a lifetime trying to create.

“She Was Definitely Prepared”

In the weeks since Dolly died, millions of fans have focused on what they lost.

Stella’s perspective is slightly different.

She is grieving too, but she also seems comforted by what she believes Dolly had already accepted.

Her sister was not unaware of what was happening.

She was not, in Stella’s telling, terrified of where she was going.

She had spent decades talking openly about faith, family and the people she hoped to see again.

And when the end finally approached, Stella believes those beliefs became a source of calm.

Dolly had spent nearly 80 years dreaming, writing, singing, building businesses, helping children and making people laugh.

She had survived poverty, enormous fame, professional disappointments, health problems and devastating personal losses.

Then, according to the sister who knew her face better than almost anyone, she reached the final chapter without fighting against the reality of it.

“She was definitely prepared,” Stella said.

For fans mourning Dolly Parton, that may be one of the most comforting things her family could have shared.