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THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 2003

Ed. Note: Indianz.Com can be reached at indianz@indianz.com -- your e-mails will be sent to the Piestewa family.

Cards and letters can be mailed to Percy Piestewa, P.O. Box 957, Tuba City, AZ 86045. Flower and other items can also be mailed, care of, to the Tuba City Unified School District, P.O. Box 67, Tuba City, AZ 86045. UPS or FedEx accepted at School District address.

April 7 Letters | April 8 Letters | April 9 Letters | April 10 Letters | April 14 Letters | April 15 Letters

Condolences
I wish to "Thank You" for your Lori's dedication to family and country. She sits now with the Sun in her face, and a "Proud Nation" at her side. Her journey will be blessed by Native Veterans from many wars!

Jim Knopke, USMC Disabled Viet Nam Vet
Tanana Chiefs Conference
Fairbanks, Alaska

Our Hearts go Out to You
As a leader of Negoot Gook Maliseet Nation at Tobique, N.B., Canada, on behalf of my community I send our condolences to your family in your recent loss of Lori. We anxiously watched and waited for word of her safe return, making sacred offerings for her and your family. It is with a heavy heart that we learned of her death, we are grateful that she was brought home to her family. She will forever be honored as one of our brave women warriors. Stay strong and forever keep her memory alive. We would like to send your family our warrior flag to be hung proudly in her memory.

Yours in sisterhood;

Tina Martin
Band Councillor
Negoot Gook, Maliseet Nation at Tobique

Thank You
If I could have said one last thing to Lori before she passed on, it would have been "Thank You."

Aaron

Prayer
O' Great Spirit Whose voice I hear in the winds
And whose breath gives life
to all the world, hear me

Let me walk in beauty
and make my eyes ever behold
the red and purple sunset

Make my hands respect
the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice

Make me wise so that I may understand
the things you have taught my people

Let me learn the lessons
you have hidden in every leaf and rock

I seek strength
not to be greater than my brother
but to fight my greatest enemy-- myself

Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes

So when life fades,
as the fading sunset, my spirit may
come to you without shame

My deepest condolences to the family

James K. Stokes
GYSGT USMC Ret

For Lori
My family and I wish to send our heartfelt condolences to the family of Lori Piestewa, in honor of Miss Piestewa, I have written a poem for her. I think it pretty much sums up what we, and I think all of the tribal nations, feel about the loss of Lori.

For Lori

When the first snow flake fell,
Stumbled unto the grand did I.
Astonished beyond the norm apparent,
Through the maze of grieving eyes.

It was then through beleaguered hope,
I thought I saw the faint cell of undying love,
Through the twist and turns of sorrow’d
Gloom, through the opaque gleam above.

One voice called out, “She has returned to us.”
I see a daughter, a sister and a mother return,
To her family, to her tribe, to the land she loved,
Leaving the sanded land from her military sojourn.

I have felt sorrow for others, as well as for myself,
But this is something else all the same,
We have lost a native woman to conflict,
Defending tribal honor, defending the native aim.

I remember seeing her picture for the first time,
I will always remember her smiling face,
I was thinking what a joyful person she must be,
Surely the product of some unconscious grace.

We as a nation will remember this beautiful woman
Her memory will carry its own immortality,
But as natives, we harbor something different for our own
Our lingering sorrow will pass, but, not at this moment I see.

We will always have doubts, about how we managed
Our affairs with other lands, fears about an evil to quell
But for all of the grieving natives, we are thankful
For returning Lori, when the first snow flake fell.

I am one native, and I will never forget Lori Piestewa.

David Demarce & Family
Spirit Lake Dakota Nation
Fort Totten N.D.