“How are you?”

That’s usually such a low-stakes question, a formality that comes between “Hello” and “How are the kids?” You wait for the person to say “fine” and then move on. It’s a thornier, infinitely more complicated proposition when your husband dies.

Because, friends, I was most certainly not fine. I was heartbroken, lost, angry and alternately unable to eat and insatiably hungry, often for pie and onion rings. But no one wants to hear all that in the frozen food aisle, so I’d just say, “Hanging in there,” and try not to make anyone else feel as utterly hopeless as I did.

Tuesday is the 10th anniversary of that terrible day we lost Scott, and I know that people are going to ask me how I am. The answer, honestly, is “fine” — but perhaps with an asterisk? I will never be the same “fine” I’d imagined in the life I was supposed to have with him and our then-toddler son. That sucks.

But grief, faith, time and therapy have taught me it’s OK to be OK, or even really good, just as much as it was OK not to be OK in the thick of my mourning. Life, if you are lucky, goes on. And I no longer feel bad about that. In fact, I’ve cherished it.

For a long time after Scott’s death, I agonized over whether he would have approved of every decision that was suddenly mine to make alone. Would he have liked the school I chose for Brooks? The way I decorated our home? I knew he had no intentions of moving back to Baltimore from Florida, so when I made the leap myself five years later I felt a little guilty. Would he have liked the neighborhood I chose? The car I bought? What would Scott do?

But eventually — and this is such a good thing — I realized the most important question was “What would Leslie do?” Increasingly, the answer went from “whatever she has to do to stop crying and get the kid to daycare on time” to kicking butt. I discovered superpowers I never imagined, like my new, almost pathological need to arrive early to everything when I’d historically always been late.

I can also plan a vacation or supermarket trip with the precision of a seasoned logistician. Turns out when there’s no one but me to do something, I can get really good at it.

I did not want to be a widow, but it made me stronger. I did not want to be a single parent, but I’ve done the best I can. I did not want to be able to write books about grief, but I know they’ve helped people. These are blessings that came from a curse, so to speak. I’ll take them.

Another thing you learn after a loss is you will become fine on your own timeline. I always roll my eyes during “Dateline” or “Law & Order” episodes when a widow laughs too loud and everyone goes “You know she did it!” (I mean, on those shows, she totally did.) But I realized others are absolutely clocking your grief and deciding whether you’re healing too fast. Is it weird to do cartwheels at the casket? Sure. But when you feel weird about posting photos of yourself smiling on Facebook, it’s gone too far.

The painful but clear truth is that my husband died, but I did not. Being aware of that has made me want to live more, not less. I am both more cautious of things that could kill me and orphan my kid, like my health, and more willing to do things that used to scare me, like ziplining in Panama — after thorough research and updating my will, of course.

At 54, I would not waste time with a man who asked me to wait five years to be with him, like TV’s Carrie Bradshaw, but I have said yes to first dates with men I would have previously swiped left on. I can spend an hour and some garlic bread. Maybe I’ll be surprised.

Healing, for me, has been the fundamental realization that I will never know what my life would be like right now if Scott were still alive: where we would live, the jobs we would have. All I’m sure of is that both the presence of him and then the loss of him made me the mother, friend, writer and citizen I am right now. I like her.

I am sure that on Tuesday, I will sit for a moment and think about that horrible day 10 years ago, and I will be sad. I will never be completely over what happened to me. But I have gotten through it stronger, wiser and funnier than I ever thought.

And that’s more than fine. That’s a miracle.