Today there are roughly two hundred first-language Cherokee speakers among the seventeen thousand citizens of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina. In 2019 the United Keetoowah Band, the Cherokee Nation, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians declared a state of emergency for the Cherokee language. Eastern Band Cherokee citizen and linguistics professor Benjamin Frey chronicles his odyssey of being introduced to the Cherokee language with trepidation as a young adult and his eventual work revitalizing the Cherokee language in a Cherokee way. Frey explores the institutional, economic, and social factors that drove the language shift from Cherokee to English. He also examines the intricacies of language and relationships, the impact of trauma, and the quest for joy and healing within the community. Frey uses storytelling to discuss the Cherokee language, its grammatical components, and its embedded cultural ideologies alongside its interactions with broader American society.