There are certain milestones no one prepares you for—the first anniversary, the first birthday, the first holiday without the person who held the other end of your life. And for many of us who’ve lived with cancer, there’s also that quiet question that shows up around the holidays: How many more of these will I have? Either can make this season feel heavier, sharper, and more fragile.

Today is the last day of November—always a busy month for me. This year, it also brought my first anniversary, first birthday, and first Thanksgiving without my husband—all in a 14-day period. Three milestones in a row that always brought me joy, but this year also brought sorrow.

I always loved the fact that my birthday was near (and sometimes on) Thanksgiving, because it meant I always got to see my extended family around my birthday. And it was fun to celebrate my birthday while on my honeymoon.

But this year I’m discovering the hard part of having all those important dates so close together.

Tomorrow the calendar will quietly turn the page to December, which will bring the first Hanukkah without him, and the first New Year’s Eve. New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Passover, and finally, his birthday will follow before we get to that one-year mark.

He hadn’t sat at our table in years. Alzheimer’s disease took him to memory care long before it took him. But I still see him sitting at the table, next to me on the couch, and at the piano, playing by himself or improvising boogie-woogie with our daughter.

Aside from his face, what really tugs at my heart are his hands. His beautiful hands. I see them so clearly—playing the piano, the guitar, the banjo, the mandolin, the three songs on the balalaika that he learned from his father. I see them holding my hands, or rubbing my feet. I feel him holding me as we danced together so many times over the 32 years since I met him.

Seven and a half years out from a breast cancer diagnosis, I made my way through the grief of the last three months. Two very difficult things to live with—different, but similar in the ways we have to live through them. Both bring sadness, loss, and isolation. Time marches on either way, but we do get to choose how we walk with it.

For my cancer friends: since diagnosis, the holidays come with a new side note—how many more of these will I have? I’m learning to let that question be there without letting it run the show. (More on this in an upcoming post.)

I didn’t do it perfectly. There were tears in the grocery store, the airport, at the homes of friends—and everywhere else. There was a moment standing at the sink when I remembered the day five years ago, at that same sink, the first time he asked me who I was. I miss him terribly.

This past week, with my birthday and Thanksgiving preparation, brought many tears.

What helped were small, ordinary things, and scaling things down a little—just as when I was being treated for cancer. This year, I brought Thanksgiving dinner to a friend who just had foot surgery and wasn’t ambulatory, rather than doing the usual big Thanksgiving with my whole family. She needed me, and I needed something smaller and quieter. My son brought pho from my favorite pho restaurant for us to have on my anniversary. I snuggled with my cats.

What I noticed was how much the tools that helped me during treatment—slowing down, doing less, letting small comforts matter—also helped me navigate the “firsts” after losing my husband. The two experiences aren’t the same, and they aren’t connected. But the practice of scaling life down to something gentler helped with both.

If you’re walking a similar path—grieving, or living with, or after, cancer—please know this: there isn’t a right way to get through the holidays, only your way. Some days, hours, and minutes will feel easier or harder than others. Both count. Both belong. Let the feelings and the tears come. And if you need to take a break from them, that’s okay too. Like eating the elephant “one bite at a time,” sometimes you have to let big feelings in bit by bit.

The week after the week, I’m not “over it.” I’m simply here—alive, tired, grateful, and still in love with a person who isn’t here anymore. I’m practicing this new life the way you practice anything—one moment at a time. So there are tears and joy. As there should be.

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