......the heart of a GIANT....**

021915
beloved LEGS....

.....maybe its a silly belief, but I have always felt that old people and very young people have many of the answers the rest of us seek about the world, about life......like they have some special ability to see into your soul, they see things the rest of us do not......

.....the first time I met Grandma Coussens I was struggling.....I was madly in love with you....foolish, young and dumb, still,  I was madly in love.....but I was fumbling with approval from your family.....they were so different from my family....so cold....and reserved.....

.....I suppose if she would have known how much we went against the grain of her Catholic beliefs she wouldn't have much liked me either.....but for some reason....I felt like she was the ONLY one I had on my side.....the only one that could see my heart was pure....and though my love for you was immature- it was real.......

.....a generation that I look up to very much is leaving us....Grandma Coussens is one that I often think of when I am sure that I just can't go on one more second during your frequent and long deployments.  A woman who was widowed in World War II, but managed despite the ultimate heartbreak to go on.....to find another, to have three children, to survive......and flourish....for many many years after being widowed a second time.....

....I don't even know the story of her first husband.  I only have these lighthearted imaginings of their story.  I picture a very young attractive couple, deeply in love, getting married before he was off to war.  I was once brave enough to ask her about him, but she burst into tears and I was left there to gather up the pieces feeling foolish for being so selfish.....I couldn't help but cry too.....because I felt how in love she was with him based on her reaction....and it resonated within my soul.....

...she raised three successful, genuine, men with good hearts.  Which in the end resulted in your existence......she has been a personal hero of mine, a pinnacle, a lighthouse, that I have used to guide and light my way as a military wife......

.....she has fed my stubborn streak, given me courage, and without ever knowing it, has motivated me to be honorable, pure and dedicated to you during times I could not believe were so hard.....

.....I know she has wanted to die for a very long time, and even though the last time we saw her, she looked absolutely miserable, when I think that she is going to leave this earth, I burst into uncontrollable tears and think to myself....my only Allie in the Coussens family is abandoning me....

....I met her toward the end of her life, so she doesn't even remember who I am.  I think I have only spoke to her in person a dozen times.  She has not earthly idea what she has meant to me in my life.....but that is just it.......

.....When your life is so extraordinary, heroic, and significant......your probably so busy surviving that you don't even realize others are looking to you......for the answers, for the map, to guide the way.....

Her message, her story, will not die with her, it will live on through me, and through our children.  They will know that during the hardest, heart wrenching, gutting times of my entire life, there was a small fragile old lady who lived with the heart of a giant, who I believe recognized TRUE LOVE when she saw it, who survived, inspired, and instilled the greatest lesson in life, which is to NEVER GIVE UP.

.....Just another day in the life of an unlikely military wife....**