Grief is a complicated thing. If you have ever gone through an important loss, like the one the woman who wrote this story went through, you will understand me. Some people can keep doing their normal activities like it's nothing and grieve independently, but others go through life-altering transformations that can shift the direction they were going in before entirely.
I personally know a lot about this because I lost both my parents a few years ago. I kept working, moved countries, and started studying again, all in the course of only one year. But that extreme level of activity didn't reflect what was going on inside accurately.
Maybe it was my way of processing it; who knows, but I remember feeling that something fundamental had changed inside of me, and I couldn't pinpoint what. With time, I understood I didn't have to pinpoint exactly what had changed; I only had to experience it. So little by little, I started recovering my sense of self, and actually I'm still at it.
What I mean by this is that you're allowed to do whatever you need to do in a situation like this, and it would be nice if your loved ones supported you on the journey. They shouldn't support us in leaving every activity we used to participate in, because that could harm our well-being, but pausing for a while is fine.
A grief process for an important loss is a very delicate thing. And having to start from scratch after it is ok; think about it like this: it's so much better for your mental health that you gave yourself the time to grieve and then got back to business. You'll be able to go much further because of that. Maybe if you hadn't stopped, you would've gone mad! All the best to the original poster.