Here is my favorite gift from this Christmas: a gold medal.

I had been thinking that 2013 wasn’t my most productive year and I couldn’t think of anything I had done  to deserve a medal, but then I turned it over and started to cry.

November 21 was the second anniversary of my diagnosis with triple-negative breast cancer. It’s not quite as good as the second anniversary of the end of treatment, but I’ll take it. And here’s the guy who gave it to me.

He’s sitting next to our tiny tree decorated with as many ornaments as its wimpy branches would hold, displaying the stocking his mother made for him, um, just a few years ago. All the sequins in the children’s costumes were sewed on individually. Unfortunately, he got the flu for Christmas, which put a damper on things, but here he’s doing his best to look cheerful.