Her warm embrace touched thousands as she made her way through the departing American soldiers in Fort Hood for nearly a decade. Now, the “hug lady” is finding her kindness repaid as she is battling cancer.

The 83-year-old, Elizabeth Laird, is beloved by all the deployed people from that Texas military base because no matter what, she never failed to give each one of them one last hug as they left the Killeen/ Fort Hood Regional Airport.

“This is my way of thanking them for what they do for our country,” Laird said “One day, a soldier hugged me, and that’s the way it started.”

Now, with a GoFundMe page, the soldiers that have felt her kindness are coming to rally by her side and have raised nearly $70,000 toward Laird’s medical bills.

“I met her twice, as many soldiers from Fort Hood do,” former U.S. Army Capt. Rob Allen said. “She was there when we left, and she was there when we came back.”

Allen, who was deployed to Iraq for 15 months in November 2007, remembered the first day Elizabeth hugged him.

“We all said goodbye to our families and got on buses,” Allen said. “Hundreds of us were in line, and one by one, she gave everyone a hug ‘goodbye’—maybe even a kiss on the cheek.”

When Allen returned in the middle of the night, January 2009, he found Laird waiting at her post.

“It was 2 or 3 in the morning, and there she was –hugging everyone as they got off the plane,” Allen said. “It was the middle of the night and without fail, this lady was there. A special lady.”

On her fundraising site, soldiers have been sharing their personal experiences with Laird and donating various amounts of money.

“You were there when I left in 2008 for Iraq and then again when I returned in 2009,” Michael Singleton said “I was nervous because I had never been outside of the country and just lost my Grandmother. That one hug made a huge difference that year, because it reminded me how my grandmother was.”

Though she inspired so many soldiers none of them had known that she had been battling breast cancer since 2005, until this month when doctors told her she was getting worse and couldn’t live alone anymore.

After Laird’s son, Vietnam veteran and former U.S. Marine Richard Dewees, made a fundraising page to help pay her medical expenses and ease the financial cost, the original goal of $10,000 was quickly passed, as money flowed in from all the soldiers she had touched before they left the U.S, not knowing if they would ever return home again.

“Hugging the soldiers is something she says the Lord gave her to do,” Dewees said. “You don’t really pay much attention to it until you finally step back and see what her hugs have meant to other people. She’s changed people’s lives.”

Laird is now feeling better and was released from intensive care and is able to see visitors and a multitude of soldiers and veterans have been at her side. With financial help and caring visits, Laird is being paid back for her infinite care and compassion to the men and women who have risked their lives for our country.

“It’s coming from people she’s hugged,” Allen said. “It’s them hugging back.”

This affects me because my dad recently left Fort Hood to be deployed to Korea and because I was not physically there to send him off, it makes me glad that Miss Laird did.

This affects the world because it is nice to know that not everyone in the world is terrible. There are still some gems and it is reassuring after seeing so many negative and/ or depressing events on the news to see someone doing something good for once.