Tomorrow would have been my husband’s 95th birthday.

In the physical world, he will have been gone for 10 months and 3 days, but because he had Alzheimer’s disease, there were many parts of him that we had already lost.

That's one of the many cruel things about Alzheimer’s.

The person you love is still physically there. You can still sit beside him. Hold his hand. Make his meals. Answer his questions. Manage the daily logistics of care.

And yet, little by little, pieces of the person you knew begin to slip away.

This beautiful, brilliant, creative man—my soulmate—had Alzheimer’s disease. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that Alzheimer’s had him.

And while I was caring for him, life did not exactly pause to make things easier.

I had major foot surgery.

I was diagnosed with cancer.

I was trying to take care of him while also trying to take care of myself, which sounds simple enough until you are actually living it. Because when you are used to being the one who handles things, the one who figures things out, the one who keeps going no matter what… needing care yourself can feel almost impossible.

And yet, both his Alzheimer’s and my cancer taught me lessons I might not have learned any other way.

When I was taking care of patients at work, I had the patience of a saint. No matter how frustrating things might be on a given day, I could let it go because I knew it was “only” work.

But at home? It was different.

By the time I had been asked the same question 30 times in as many minutes, I was exhausted. Stressed. And not always as patient as I wanted to be.

Even though I knew better—even though I knew I wasn’t supposed to say things like, “I already told you”—sometimes I found myself doing it anyway. And I would feel so guilty.

Then came November 22, 2020.

I was doing the dishes, and my husband asked me who I was for the first time.

The world stopped.

It was as if a light switch flipped in my brain.

In that instant, I thought, We’re really in it now. There’s no turning back.

And something inside me shifted.

I finally, fully accepted that my life partner was no longer in control of any of it. Not the questions. Not the confusion. Not the forgetting. Not the disease that had invaded our lives.

And with that acceptance came the patience I had been trying so hard to force. Real patience. The kind that comes when you stop arguing with reality.

I stopped trying to interact with him as if he were still the man he had been, and started to accept who he was now. I had to let go of the version of him I was clinging to so desperately. I had to accept that things could never go back to the way they were. Not just resign myself to it. Accept it. Be at peace with it.

Sound familiar?

Because cancer asks something very similar of us.

Not that we approve of what happened. Not that we are grateful for it. Not that we pretend it didn’t hurt, or terrify us, or change our lives.

But at some point, if we want peace, we have to stop fighting the fact that it happened.

I had to accept what had happened to my husband and to our family.

And then I had to accept what had happened to me and to my family when I was diagnosed with cancer.

That acceptance made all the difference.

Because acceptance is not giving up.

It’s not saying, “This is okay.”

It’s saying, “This is not okay, but I can be okay.”

It’s saying, “This is true. Now what?”

That question—now what?—is where freedom begins.

When I stopped demanding that my husband be who he used to be, I could love him as he was.

When I stopped demanding that my body be exactly what it had been before cancer, I could begin figuring out how to live in the body I had now.

When I stopped insisting that life should look the way I had planned, I could start asking what I actually wanted next.

Alzheimer’s taught me patience.

Cancer taught me urgency.

Caregiving taught me that I could be strong and still need help.

Grief taught me that love does not disappear just because the form changes.

And all of it taught me that constraints are not always the same thing as a prison.

Sometimes the constraints are real. Disease is real. Fatigue is real. Loss is real. Fear is real.

But the prison is not the constraints. The prison is the story that says, “Because this happened, I can never be free again.”

I don’t believe that anymore.

My husband, before Alzheimer’s, used to say, “Everybody has pain. Suffering is optional.”

He didn’t mean that pain is easy. Or that we can simply positive-think our way through illness, caregiving, grief, or fear.

He meant that how we relate to our reality matters.

And if you’ve had cancer, maybe you’re living with your own version of this right now.

Maybe you’re trying to get back to who you were.

Maybe you’re angry that your body betrayed you.

Maybe you’re exhausted from being strong.

Maybe you’re grieving a life that no longer fits, while also wondering if there might be something more honest, more peaceful, more free on the other side.

There can be.

Not because cancer is a gift. Not because loss is beautiful. But because you are still here. And as long as you are still here, you get to ask:

What am I still clinging to that is hurting me?

What old rules no longer fit?

What would it look like to stop fighting reality and start building something new from it?

You may not get to choose everything that happens. But you do get to choose how you meet yourself inside it. And sometimes, that is the beginning of a whole new life.

If you’re not quite sure how to do that, I’d love to help you figure out what you really, truly want now—and how to begin moving toward it. Click here if you’d like to chat.

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