To my grandchildren. And to the great grandchildren I may never meet, the ones who will carry our name into years I cannot imagine:
I'm writing this to you because someday you're going to have questions about me that I might not be around to answer. You'll hear stories. Some of them will be true. Some of them won't. And I want you to have something in my own words—not a politician's words, not a lawyer's words, but your PopPop's words—that tells you what I believed and what I hoped for you.
First, know this: you were the best part of my life. Not the titles. Not the accomplishments. Not the battles won or lost. You. The weight of you in my arms when you were small. The sound of your laughter filling up a quiet house that had seen too much silence. The way you looked at me like I had all the answers, even when I didn't have a single one.
I want to be honest with you, because you deserve honesty more than you deserve a hero.
I was not a perfect man. I pushed too hard sometimes. I backed people into corners when I should have left them room to find their own way out. I spent years so focused on fighting for what was right that I sometimes forgot to be gentle with the people around me. I missed things—moments, conversations, quiet evenings—because I was working or worrying or preparing for the next battle. Your parents and your grandmother could tell you about the times I got it wrong. There were more of those times than I'd like to admit.
But here's what I learned from getting it wrong, and this is what I most want you to carry with you:
Integrity is not something you're born with. It's something you build, one decision at a time, in the moments when nobody's watching and it would be easier to cut the corner. You will be tempted—by shortcuts, by easy money, by people who tell you that everybody does it, by the voice in your own head that says just this once. Don't listen. Not because I said so. Because the person you become when you take shortcuts is someone you won't recognize in the mirror ten years later, and the cost of getting yourself back is higher than you can imagine.
Be kind. I know that sounds simple, and I know the world will sometimes reward people who aren't. But kindness is not weakness. The strongest thing I ever did in my life was stand in front of a room full of people who had just destroyed my career and tell them I loved them. I meant it. Not because they deserved it—but because the hate would have eaten me alive if I'd let it stay. You will meet people who hurt you. Some of them will be people you trusted. Forgive them, not for their sake, but for yours. Bitterness is a poison you drink yourself.
Work with your hands. I don't care what degrees you earn or what titles you hold—and I hope you earn many—never lose the ability to fix something that's broken, to build something from nothing, to get your hands dirty and feel the dignity of labor that doesn't need an audience. Some of the clearest thinking I ever did was lying on a concrete floor under a car wash pump with a flashlight between my teeth. The world will try to convince you that important people don't do that kind of work. Don't believe it.
Protect your money. I know that sounds unromantic, and I know you'd rather hear PopPop talk about courage and honor than about savings accounts. But listen to me: money is time, and time is the one thing you can never get back. Learn what compounding interest means—really learn it, until you feel it in your bones. A dollar saved at eighteen is worth more than ten dollars saved at forty, not because of magic but because of math. The Tribe has given you resources that most young people in this country will never have. That is not a gift to be spent. It is a seed to be planted. Plant it early. Water it with patience. And let time do what time does.
Know where you come from. You are Cherokee. That is not a line on a form or a card in your wallet. It is a fire that has burned in these mountains for longer than anyone can count. Your ancestors chose to stay when the government tried to force them out. They hid in these hills, they bled for this land, they endured things I pray you will never have to endure—so that you could be here. You owe them your life. Honor that debt by knowing your history, by learning your language, by understanding that being Cherokee is not something you inherit passively. It is something you carry forward actively, every single day, in how you live and what you stand for.
Don't let anyone else write your story. People wrote mine for me for nearly a decade—people who didn't know me, people who had reasons to tear me down, people who found it easier to repeat a lie than to look for the truth. I built this website and wrote this book so you would have the real record, by my own hand, in my own voice. If someone tells you something about your PopPop that doesn't sound right, come here. Read the documents. Look at the evidence. Draw your own conclusions. I trust you to be fair because I raised your parents to be fair, and they're raising you the same way.
Love fiercely. I have loved your grandmother since I was barely older than some of you are now. Forty years and she is still the first person I want to talk to in the morning and the last voice I want to hear at night. That kind of love is not luck. It is a choice you make every single day—to stay, to listen, to forgive, to show up even when it's hard, especially when it's hard. Find someone who makes you want to be better than you are. Then spend your life trying to deserve them.
And when the world gets loud—and it will—find the river. Walk along it. Listen to it. Remember that water doesn't fight the rock. It flows around. It finds another way. And given enough time, it wears the rock to sand.
I may not be there for every graduation, every wedding, every first child placed in your arms. I wish I could promise you I will be, but life doesn't work that way, and I've learned not to make promises I can't keep. But know this: whether I'm sitting beside you or watching from somewhere you can't see, I am proud of you. Not for what you've accomplished. For who you are. That was always enough.
The hardest path is usually the right one. The truth always surfaces. And the people who love you—really love you—will still be standing there when the storm passes.
Stand tall in your truth. Take care of each other. And never forget where you come from.