This is the thing about most crappy bits of life - be it bereavement, illness, divorce or whatever. The option of crawling under the covers and dying doesn't really exist, so you have to sort of muddle through as best you can. I find people calling stuff like that brave or admirable quite irritating. It isn't brave for a drowning man to cling to the wreckage and swim to shore, is it? It's just what you have to do.