Some days no matter how many important things are on my to-do list, it feels like grieving is pinned to the top of the list. It’s a task I can never fully cross off or complete. Grief is always there. Grief is never done. Can we ever take a break from grief?

If you are in the early stages of raw grief, dear friend, I am afraid you know the answer to this question is probably not. But after a while, grief becomes almost like a familiar friend.

My mother died three years ago, and my grief sits next to me on the sofa when I watch a movie that I remember seeing with her. Grief sits in the front seat of my car when I’m driving. It follows me from room to room, silently watching me. I can feel grief’s eyes on me everyday, waiting for me to attend to it, to be with it, to attempt to complete the task that never will be finished. Grief places its hand on my shoulder when I close my eyes. It is there when I need to work, when I try to relax, and especially in that place halfway between sleep and awake.

But there are days now that I tell my grief it must be patient. We are companions, my grief and I. This relationship isn’t going to end anytime soon, and so I think it is possible after a while that we can take a break from grief.

I think you may know in your heart when the time is right for you, when for a moment you can set our grief down and live, or maybe simply take a few breaths in that space. You know that your grief will always be there for you. You can come back to it. You will have to come back to it. It is in our grief now that we visit with our lost mother or father. I am in no hurry to check those visits off my list.

But grief hurts, even after three years, and there are times now when I must take a break, when I want a break. And possibly you can, too. In your mind, place your grief inside a clear glass jar. Imagine yourself gently but firmly screwing the lid on the jar. Place the jar on a bright and sunny shelf in your mind. Imagine a small vase with a single flower next to the jar, or some other special object that makes you smile and reminds you of your lost loved one.

You placed the jar on the shelf and you can take it down at any time. You can pick it back up again as soon as you are ready, whenever you are ready.

I will admit that there have been times when I’ve decided not to grieve. It felt a little like I was turning my back on my mother, and yet also a relief, some long overdue respite. I purposefully put my grief in that jar and set it on the sunny shelf.

I’ve also pretended that my mother is not dead, but that she is away on vacation. I have told myself that for thirty minutes I am going to imagine that she is in Hawaii, soaking up the sun and watching the waves. She will come home red with sunburn, and I will lament as usual that she never uses sunscreen. I let myself think about things I want to tell her when she’s back.

I know these reveries, these escapes and daydreams, cannot last. I know I will have to pick up the jar, open it, and let my grief out again. But around the holidays I let myself think for the briefest moment when I am getting the mail and sorting through the envelopes in my hand, that I just might see a card in the stack, addressed to me in her handwriting.

I let myself have these moments, of thinking that she is not dead but merely away. Because she is somewhere else, that much is true, and it is easier on my heart to occasionally imagine she isn’t calling because she’s busy in her garden or off having adventures, rather than acknowledging that she died and I won’t hear her voice ever again.

I think we can take these breaks, that is it okay if we try to let our hearts have a moment of peace. You may get to the point at which you can set your grief aside for short moments, for as long as you need, or as long as you can, to let yourself exhale and maybe feel a moment of happiness without the weight of grief, your constant companion.

Your grief will be there when you are ready to be with it again. The next time you are alone in the car and begin to sing aloud as you drive, your grief, who knows you so well by now, will belt out the chorus, too. Its voice will harmonize with yours.

Your grief is part of you now, a deeply embedded layer, but maybe one that it is okay to gently remove and set down for a while, like a soft and comfortable sweater. Peel off that layer when you need to. It will wait for you. Grief is patient. Grief is like water–it will find a way through you. With enough time water can cut through rock and make itself a new pathway. You can wrap your protective layer of grief around you when you need to be warm, or peel it off and take a break when you need fresh air on your skin, just for a while. You are like water, too. You just might find a new path around.