And then one Saturday, I became something else. My husband died in a cycling accident in a race to benefit cancer research. I lost my partner, I lost his contribution to our household income, and I lost my idea of what kind of parent I was.

“Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant,” Joan Didion wrote in The Year of Magical Thinking, her memoir about the loss of her husband and daughter. “You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.” You’re probably feeling like you’re seated at that table now. The coronavirus is serving up a rare and tragic mix of grief, drastic life changes, and economic stress to a huge swath of the country.

Read: My whole household has COVID-19

It sucks. Acknowledging, and accepting, this is key. Grief has several stages, and contrary to popular belief, they don’t occur in any specific order. One can experience anger and bargaining and depression all at once. Right now, many of us find that we work our way through those stages before lunch. But these are the cards you have been dealt. How will you play them?

“The quality of parenting is what … differentiates those [children] who do well versus those who don’t do well,” the psychologist Irwin Sandler says of the body of research on families in transition due to divorce or loss. “In a sense, that’s a very optimistic message. Because it indicates the power of parenting.” In other words, when something outside your control changes your life, it’s what you do with what you can control that really shapes your children.

Sandler, who studies the resilience of children and families at Arizona State University’s Resilient Parenting for Bereaved Families Program, encourages parents to create traditions and family time that take into account the new normal. Family bonding is one of five building blocks of resilient parenting, established by the Family Bereavement Program. The others are self-care, active listening, and the maintenance of some structure and rules, all of which culminate in helping children cope, the final building block.

I did this in various ways. Breakfast became a ritual. It was my favorite meal of the day and the time when my daughter was sunniest. The time was quality, the smell of bacon and eggs was comforting, and a hot meal was the clearest symbol that I could keep providing for my kids.

As the months went by, I knew that Christmas would look different. We bought a tree early—the weekend the new baby was born in November—to get a jump start on the holiday season and our rebirth as a family. My brother, who had moved in with us to help out, picked up the tree. Close friends, family, and neighbors who were our lifeline in those days gathered to trim it. We’ve done the same thing every year since, only now my girls go with me to pick out the tree and help me haul it into the house. My kids saw me walk through pain, pray, and provide, and for us, our tree is a reminder of how we made life and memories happen even in a time of crisis.