Driving home from dinner in a friend’s sukkah, I glanced up and saw the full moon. A perfect disk hung in the sky.

It is the first night of Sukkot, and I knew I would find it there, waiting for me, shining on me, guiding me.

As I drove, I thought about the wise words I had read this afternoon by Joanne Fink:

“We spend much of our lives trying to create stability. We make plans, build homes, nurture relationships, and establish routines that help us feel grounded. We hope the things that imbue our lives with meaning will continue. We pray the people we love will be well.”

As a Jew, I live by a semi-lunar calendar. I knew to expect a full moon this evening.

Sometimes we know exactly what to expect.

And sometimes we don’t.

As Joanne continued, “And then life changes. Sometimes gradually, sometimes in an instant.”

This week, my younger daughter had her seventh surgery in just 13 months, all of them to help her deal with the threat of breast cancer. My older daughter, who had her first surgery for the same reason 10 years ago, had to have another just four weeks ago.

I had stage four breast cancer when my daughters were very young, and later discovered that I carry a mutation common among some Ashkenazi Jews. Both of my siblings have it, as do both of my daughters.

Every month, the moon moves through its phases. Every day it rises and sets. And every day, my family and I live with the reality and threat of cancer, and the life it has given us.

If I have learned one thing over these many years, it is this: Life goes on. Or it doesn’t.

But while it does, the moon will keep shining on me. And like my friend Joanne Fink, I will keep seeking meaning and doing my small part to heal the world.

Thank you, Joanne, for the beauty, wisdom, and light you shine.