My Aunt Pam is a nice lady, but she does not understand military life. At our family reunion last week she exclaimed, “Why do you LIVE like that!??”
Well, the simple reason is that my husband is a hottie. Mind, body and soul, that guy is the one I want. The fact that he is in the military means that we are gonna live “like that” because he is more important to me than living in one place all my adult life.
Which seems fairly obvious. But what my Aunt Pam doesn’t know is fueling that ability to live “like that” is an even deeper belief about what life is supposed to mean. Polish humorist Leo C. Rosten might have been purposely writing one of our Military Wife Quotes when he wrote:
“I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be “happy.” I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.”
When I really think about it, I do believe that a successful life isn’t measured by whether or not you were blindingly happy every minute and managed to avoid all possible pain. Instead I believe we are supposed to force life to mean something. We are supposed “to matter, to count, to stand for something.”
Standing with a military member means that you stand for love. You stand for meaningful work. You stand for being part of something bigger than yourself.
And when the two of you live like that for years and learn all the lessons that usefulness and responsibility and compassion and honor have to teach, then happiness comes to you. Happiness builds up around you. Happiness sits at the table with you, a guest who stays and stays long into the night.
