07/29/2026
My son used to watch Encanto on repeat.
He was after the family, not the songs. He had seen enough movies where the family came in a matching set of four and everybody was fine. Then he watched this one, saw a house full of people holding each other together, and something in him settled. A family can look like this too.
I had no idea what the woman singing Dolores had lived through.
Adassa is the voice of Dolores in Disney's Encanto. "We Don't Talk About Bruno." Number one on Billboard. Platinum, over 8 million copies sold.
She is also a mother of seven who walked into a hospital during her callback for that role, and was wheeled out paralyzed from the neck down.
She could not sing.
She could not stand.
She could not hold her own children.
And here is the part I cannot stop thinking about. While she was down, her kids came together. They organized. They took care of each other. They took care of her.
She told me she had been keeping them from that blessing the whole time — because she wanted to be the one in control of everything.
I have been the woman in control of everything. I have also been the woman on the floor. I did not expect a Disney voice actress to say the thing I needed to hear out loud.
What she came back with is not a strategy. It is older than that. You are a beloved child of God no matter what you face, and your value does not change when your body does. Not when you cannot work. Not when you cannot give. Not when you cannot lift one single thing off your own to-do list.
My son was right. A family can look like this too.
So can a resilient woman — flat on her back, being carried by the people she thought she was supposed to be carrying.
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� Adassa's memoir, Love, Keep Showing Up: Music, Messes and Miracles: https://www.adassa-official.com/
