I am writing this in Plantangenent Cherokee and will have it translated to something for my friends to read when I am finished.
My Mother was the strongest, bravest, tenderest, wisest, stateliest, and most beautiful woman I have ever known. To look at her, everyone knew, was to look at nobility at its noblest and its most honorable.
Everything important in Life I learned from her. She started teaching me at the same time she started encouraging me to say "mama" and "dada" and she stopped teaching me the day she was buried.
She taught me to be ashamed of good until I had improved it to excellent.
To be humbled by compliments and grateful for possessing whatever brought them.
To never deceive myself into thinking any of my strong points were of my own doing.
To be as comfortable with peasants as with chiefs ~ truly so with no pretense. The same with animals as with people.
To look down to no one and up to everyone. To seek the best in them all ~ and help them find it.
To hate stupidity but love ignorance, because I could change ignorance into knowledge. To always honor the difference between stupidity and the stupid.
To never ever give up anything worthwhile and to not bother to begin with it if it were not worthwhile.
To never ever give in to surrender ~ but to take short breaks in order to have no part of it.
To never accept the credit for victory ~ but to always give thanks for having been given what it takes to achieve it.
To always be honorable ~ to accept death before anything less than honor ~ and to never dishonor another soul.
My Mother taught me that it is better to murder than to be dishonest. Reason to kill may exist but reason to lie never exists. That more harm to greater numbers is always done by dishonesty than by murder.
That to refuse to give help to anyone in need is reason to give up my own life.
That to lie down at night without having reached a new understanding is to dishonor myself and my people.
That it would be better to be blind than to not appreciate the beauty always present.
And that was only the first lesson. To hopefully make me worthy of those to follow.
Mother, am I, could I, possibly be prepared to carry on as you would expect me to and want me to?
I pray, for your happiness and your honor, that I am and I will.
If my prayer is answered, I know your smile will never end.
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