The Soldier of Stars [1] - Band of Brothers

60 | tell it to the stars

" I've never met a strong person with an easy past."

- Atticus

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Life at Mourmelon-le-Grande had never been more peaceful. 

But Hazel noticed Lizzie was getting an influx of letters, almost daily by this point. And Hazel would watch Lizzie read them, her eyes grow sad and the stress lines appear on her features as she read it all. Hazel and Catherine were the only ones, as well as Gene who knew about Lizzie's grandmother and her cancer. But Lizzie didn't tell many people, she didn't want to burden others were her hardships when they had their own. 

Truth be told, Lizzie was getting updates on her grandmother. The cancer was worse and Lizzie was told she couldn't hold on much longer. Lizzie got a letter from Vest almost daily by this point, her parents wrote one to her everyday, updating Lizzie on just about everything that dealt with her grandmother. Lizzie had been the closest out of all the Elliot's with her grandmother. Her grandmother, even when she was first getting sick, was brave and she told the funniest stories from her childhood, with a smile on her face, her eyes lighting up. She never failed to do that. 

Even now, her parents wrote in letters that her grandmother was still doing that. 

Her grandmother had been the one to help her through the worst breakup she had ever experienced. Even though her parents and her brothers were there for her on the night she spent, crying upstairs alone in her room, refusing to eat, her grandmother truly helped her through most of it. 

Lizzie had only been 17 back in early 1940, when she had started dating one of the boys from her school, Danny Donahue. Lizzie had felt for the first time, that someone like him was making her feel love, a real love. She had been mistaken and her broke her heart once he heard she was deciding to join the Cadet Nurses' Corps. He had always been supportive and caring and willing for her to do anything he wanted. He was even super supportive of college, when not many people were of the day for women to go to those campuses. 

But the Cadet Nurses' Corps had crossed the line, for him at least, and that's when he broke it off. 

Her grandmother helped her through for the months following and leading up to her deployment to the Nurses' Corps, and the women that were there, were supportive and told Lizzie how wonderful she was and she didn't need Danny. But her grandmother, she had taken Lizzie's hands and the two had prayed; prayed that Danny would find the good in life and try and be better. 

And then her grandmother told her the wisest words she thought she'd ever hear from someone and it was hard to come to the certain realization, but Lizzie knew it was true.

 The heart was made to be broken over and over again until it grew wise, just like if you fall and fall again you'll eventually stand tall and now be knocked down again.