When you lose someone close to you, it takes time to get through your grief. So be patient with yourself. Don't expect to recover straight away. You will get by. 

You will start with days that feel terrible. Then you will still feel bad, but you will have a few moments of feeling ok. Then an hour, or a few hours that feel ok. Eventually the tide will turn, and you will realize that your days are mostly ok, with a few bad moments. Although it seems hard to imagine at the start, your life will eventually find a new equilibrium, and joy will return.

When you lose someone very close, every moment of your day changes..they are no longer alongside you, caring for you, or in your care. You lose your identity in relation to them, as a partner, child , parent or friend. How could they be gone? Who are you now, without them?  What does it mean for your future?

In a desperate attempt to rationalize the unreasonable, we try to blame someone, often ourself. How could the impossible have happened? Did I not look after them? What if they had not been there? Did the doctor do his job properly?

Death may seem to be someone's fault, but it is a combination of unfortunate circumstances, and people's reaction to them, that we were not able, or didn't know how to prevent. Actually, --it happens, there is no reason, and blaming only adds to our pain. 

When you are under extreme stress, it helps to look after yourself:

Eat well- healthy food, not too much or too little. If your body is not nourished your mind will not cope. 

Get some exercise- This clears your mind and gets you out of the house, reminding you there is a world beyond your grief.

Talk to a friend, a counsellor, or a spiritual advisor. Learn other people's coping strategies. Accept help. You need it.

Allow yourself to cry. Grief is too big to push under. Don't add to your misery by bottling it up. It's normal to be sad.

Don't try to bury your pain with drugs or alcohol. It might seem to work in the short term, but in the long run it only delays your grieving, and hence your healing.  

Sometimes it's necessary to grit your teeth and keep going. After the immediate debilitating shock is over, it can help to keep up your usual routines, to try and keep some normality in a life that no longer seems normal. Do some work, get the kid's to school... It's hard...like battling blindly, head down, against a storm... but doing things helps.

Grief is like prolonged shock... do you know that numbed feeling after you've fallen off your bike and really hurt yourself?...Well, that numbness can go on for months. We were like a household of zombies, just going through the routines, but not able to think or feel much.

You might find that you have moments of "grief brain", when you can't think how to do the simplest thing... like when the can opener doesn't seem to work- then you realize the can was upside-down. Or the printer won't go... because you forgot to plug it in. Or you misread an email... and arrive just as the meeting is ending. Some days you just have to give yourself a pat on your back if you achieve something as simple as washing the dishes.

After several months of us all being very subdued, my daughter came home with a funny story. She was laughing and waving her arms in the air. I realized that was the first time any of us had been animated. It was like a glimpse of sunshine through the cloud, a moment of returning to our old selves, of seeing that we could be happy again. 

Most of us have to do some kind of work to keep the wolf from the door... but now is not the time to be inventing the next space rocket. It is like one third of your brain is taken up with grieving...You might work reasonably well, at things that are easy for you... but you will tend to make mistakes, or forget things... and the person you are working for may not understand that grief is the cause.

You might try to distract yourself by being a workaholic, but grief is exhausting enough, without doing too much work. Give yourself a bit of time to heal: to look for whatever it is that you need to mend your spirit.

After about six months, once the immediate overwhelming pain is over, it might help to drop the "grit your teeth and soldier on" attitude. Try to gently face the pain. If you keep burying the bad feelings, you may also bury the possibility of receiving and giving good feelings. You can become emotionally locked down, and unable to change. Like a big brittle old tree that cracks in the wind, while the supple bamboo bends and survives. 

When someone close to us dies, a lot of things that seemed important, suddenly seem trivial. What's the point of not doing what you enjoy, if you might die tomorrow? Who really cares if you look perfect, or have the latest things, or appear to be more successful than your neighbour? Wealth can't rule out death. Life is too short to be simply meeting other people's expectations, or to be controlled by our fears. Try letting go of the things that don't seem truly worthwhile to you any more.

The loss of someone who was part of our daily life brings about change. You may have to learn to do things on your own, or with the help of someone new. You may have to change jobs, or get a job, or shift house. Or you may find you now have the freedom to try new things.  

Try to be careful and considered. If you leap into change too fast, while emotionally fragile, or through loneliness or anger, you can make some disastrous choices, that only add to the grief. 

On the other hand, if you refuse to change; if you cling to the past, or if you get stuck in your identity as a griever- forever seeking sympathy, then you may turn away new people and opportunities.

The death of your loved one may be the worst thing that has ever happened to you. You may need new knowledge and strategies to cope with it. You may have new questions, such as: How do children react to grief? What happens to someone's spirit after they die? How do different cultures and religions deal with death?

Seek out wisdom. Sift it and sort it. Adopt the things that make sense to you.

Death can change the way we look at life. Once you've had time to recover a bit... what will you do with the time that you have? Will you change what you do? Will you do the same thing differently? 

Life is an experiment. You might want to make it an interesting one- to try out new ways of doing and being. Then see what happens.

You only have one life...so do what you want to do...and do it your own way. This is not about being selfish, and it's not about being perfect. It's about being perfectly yourself, and finding your own best self to give to other people, to contribute to our world.

When we are grieving, other people often do their best to give us extra love. Their love is like a light, that helps us through this dark time. The best kind of love is given freely, so accept it. When you have grown strong enough, you can give it back. 

Think about what you would like people to say about you at your funeral. Will they remember you fondly for the amount of money you earned, or for the love that you showed them?

Grief does not go on forever. While you will always remember, and often miss the person you have lost, the pain recedes.

We cannot control death. If you close your heart and to try to control ever being hurt again, you will be unable to experience the fullness of love and life. So risk giving your love again, and risk living life without fear, in the knowledge that you could lose that love and life, at any time. Know that every moment of joy, love, and life is precious, and that the painful winter of grief eventually gives way to a summer of renewed growth.