Grief can make you feel like all the roads are blocked, all the exits are barred. It can feel as if you have no direction, nowhere to go, nowhere to be but here, thinking of everything and thinking of nothing.

At such times, we need a way marker. We need a direction. We need to find a way through the barricades.

But only in our own time. When grief strikes, stop. Let it wash over you. Accept it for what it is. It’s an expression of love for the person we’ve lost. Take your time. Let no one rush you. Don’t kisten to those who would tell you that you should be over your grief, by now. There is no time limit.

Peace will come in your time, when you are ready.

Meanwhile, look for the signs. Look for the markers that say, “This is the way to your future.” They will appear. Sometimes, they’ve been there all along but our tears haven’t allowed us to see them. Sometimes they come along when we least expect it.

Eventually, though, we all have to make our own map. It’s not a map out of grief. It’s a map that acknowledges our grief, a map overlayed with grief. But like a landscape, shrouded in mist in which, little by little, the mist dissipates, very slowly, over time, as we keep putting one foot in front of the other, the grief, too, dissipates.

Maybe our grief will never go away. But it will fade, just enough for us to see the way forward.

Grief can make us feel like there is no hope, nothing to which to look forward.

We read stories of long-married couples who pass away within days of each other. Once one dies, the other feels there is little reason to live. Half of his or her life is snatched away and there is nothing but a feeling of not feeling anything.

Time, however, is a great healer. Rightly, we are encouraged to live one day at a time. Each day has enough worries without borrowing any from yesterday, or from tomorrow. Yet, tomorrow really is another day. Tomorrow provides an opportunity to start again. It is, quite literally, a new dawn, and a new day.

It’s a bit like breaking a leg. We hobble around for six weeks, with an unwieldy cast for company. Then comes the day when we say, “Tomorrow, I get my cast off, and I’ll be free.” There may still be residual pain, albeit not as bad as when we broke the leg. But we move on.

As we deal with our grief, as we deal with our anxieties, as we deal with the stresses and strains of everyday life, there is no harm in thinking about tomorrow, and the bright future that tomorrow can bring.

After all, we may be grieving, but our loved one would want us to be happy. And, although the pain will be there for a long time, we can remove the cast of grief and feel the freedom to move on.