We shall pass this earth, but only the stones will remain.

"If the legends fade, who will teach the children?" This was a refrain often expressed by Tom Hendrix - a beloved member of my extended family and of my home community. To say that he was treasured by many is to underestimate the love and respect each of us had for him, and now for the legacy he has left to us.

Tom spent decades of his life dedicating himself to learning as much as he could about his ancestors, the Yuchi people, and to celebrating the life of his great-great-grandmother, a woman named Te-Lah-Ney - which in her language means "Woman With the Dancing Eyes". She was forced, with the rest of her people, along what is now called the Trail of Tears - ending up in present-day Muskogee, Oklahoma. She knew she could not survive on the reservation and so she walked 700 miles back to her home in The Shoals; it took five years. I dare not attempt to tell her story because I would not do it justice. Tom did so in his own way, so beautifully and poetic, in his book, If the Legends Fade. (He was thoughtful enough to write it using language that even young children could read and understand - a clever and beautiful way to enchant us all with the story of her bravery.)

Eight million pounds of stone - that is approximately what Tom used to build this tribute to his great-great-grandmother - the largest unmortared wall in America and the largest memorial anywhere to a Native American woman. It is recorded in the Library of Congress. There are two parallel sides to the wall: one for her journey to Oklahoma and the other to represent her journey home; Tom sought to place a stone for each of Te-Lah-Nay's steps. A tourism brochure might call it the Wichahpi Commemorative Stone Wall, but everyone who knew of it simply called it "The Wall". Traveling there has become a pilgrimage for people from all over the world - from neighbors, to native people, to Tibetan monks, to artists like Rosanne Cash - who mentioned the wall in her song, "A Feather's Not a Bird". It is a spiritual place, even for those who follow no formal religion or dogma.

Tom was over 80-years old, but you would hardly know it to speak to him. His eyes lit up when he recounted the story of his people and of Te-Lah-Ney, a woman of extraordinary courage. This courage not only extended to Tom, but to his children - one of whom I have been blessed to know for most of my life. My dear brother-in-law, Tom's son Trace said, "He's taught me patience and to look at life with your third eye, your heart."

If you have seen the movie Muscle Shoals, you have seen just a brief glimpse of Tom Hendrix telling the story of his ancestors who named the Tennessee River, which runs alongside our hometown, "the river that sings". I have no doubt at all that his spirit lives on in those who love him, in the Singing River, and in the stones...