It has been five months since "Glee" star Cory Monteith was found dead in his Vancouver hotel room, from a combination of drugs, but girlfriend, Lea Michele admits she's still coping with the loss.

The "Cannonball" singer appeared on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" Thursday, where she opened up about life after Monteith's sudden passing and how she was keeping the actor's memory alive.

"It's certainly been a pretty rough year, but I've been surrounded by such great people, such great family," Michele said. "I really feel like I'm still trying to figure out all of this."

The 27-year-old's parents have reportedly relocated from New York to L.A., to help their daughter through her grieving.

"It's been only a few months, but my mom has experienced a lot of loss in her life, and she told me, at one point, there is an empowerment that comes with grief - at some point you find it," Michele said. "It's very hard, but you will find it, and I think at a certain point you can choose to sort of fall from this or you can choose to rise. And that's what I'm just trying to do my best for him, because I know that that's what he would have wanted."

The TV star went on to explain how "Glee" guest star Kate Hudson came to her rescue after losing Monteith on July 13. Michele said Hudson's home became a safe haven, allowing her and her family to hide from media outlets. The actress admitted to things getting "pretty intense" when the paparazzi would follow her, while she tried to grieve.

"It was so helpful to just basically have a safe place to process and just have a minute to just breathe before getting back to my house, which just has a lot of memories and stuff, so being someplace else to just have a moment was really nice," Michele said. "To have that time at her home to just really be in private with this for a moment before getting back to work and before going home, I'm just so thankful to her."

After the death of Monteith, Michele said going back to work helped her deal with her grief. The actress admitted that she just wanted to be with her friends on the set of FOX's "Glee".

"They're my family," she said. "What people also don't understand is that going to work is no harder than being at home and being in the house and opening up a closet and seeing a pair of shoes. There's this grief [that] goes with you every day whatever you're doing; when there are great moments, when there are hard moments. So I'd rather be at work with the people who I love that are going through the same thing."

Along with working on "Glee", Michele has been putting the finishing touches on her first album "Louder". She told DeGeneres that Monteith got to hear all but two songs on the album.

"He had notes all the time when I would come home and play him a song," she said. "We would sit in the car and listen to it because it had the best sound system."

Michele dedicated a song on her album in memory of her late boyfriend called "If You Say So" and later performed her single "Cannonball" the full album drops in March.