Cindy McCain has kept a low profile since her husband Senator John McCain died last year — much lower than their daughter, Meghan McCain, who has praised her late father repeatedly in her capacity as a co-host of The View — but all of that changed Wednesday with the publication of a new essay about what she’s learned in the last 12 months.

Ahead of the one-year anniversary of his death on Sunday, Cindy wrote an essay for People Magazine that the family’s “heaviest grief has subsided,” but “it was a struggle at times to reach this point.”

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“I was so accustomed to sharing life with John, there were days when I felt overwhelmed by his absence, and the habits and little problems of ordinary life seemed a challenge. But you learn it’s okay to not be okay every day. You learn to live with a broken heart, and the bad days become fewer, and the time in between richer and more meaningful,” she continued.

She wrote about the senator’s legacy and fighting spirit, noting his “respect for the dignity of all people and the political values that best protect it: liberty and justice for all” as she reflected on her assumption of the chairmanship of the McCain Institute’s Board of Trustees.

Meghan McCain returned to ABC’s the View in October of 2018, two months after the senator’s death. At the time, she said, “He believed in American exceptionalism. He believed America is the greatest country in the history of the world. He believed that when your candidate’s opponent says something racist in a rally, you push back. That is John McCain and that is what America is.”