Losing someone you love is never easy, and the process is different for everyone. For some people, keeping their deceased loved one’s things exactly the way they left them is part of it. But to some people, this act of enshrinement can be viewed as unhealthy. Dr. Jason Singh argues that this behavior isn’t unhealthy at all. In fact, he explains that it’s actually your brain doing something intelligent.

In a recent video, Singh makes his case. The doctor asks, “Have you ever lost someone and couldn’t bring yourself to touch a single thing they left behind?” At this point people may be expecting that he would touch on ways to move on from this kind of grief, but he doesn’t.

Instead, he shares information about the brain that can help those who are struggling with the reality of being unable to move these items. “Here’s something you may not have realized,” Singh says. “You’re not keeping their stuff because you’re stuck. You’re keeping it because your brain is doing something profoundly intelligent.”

Singh explains that while people around you may think leaving a deceased loved one’s unwashed coffee mug untouched is unhealthy, it’s not. He shares that our brains are constantly updating information on the people we know. Like a computer system, it’s always processing new information and looking for updates. When someone we love dies, there is no new information about that person for our brains to process and categorize.

Leaving things as the deceased person left them is bridging this stalled function in a way. According to Singh, “Objects are not just objects to a grieving mind. They’re the last negotiation your nervous system has with permanence. See, when your dad passes away, or your mom passes away, something neurologically catastrophic happens that has nothing to do with sadness. Your brain, which has spent decades building a mental model of that person, their voice, their patterns, their presence, suddenly receives no more data to update that model with, and it refuses to close the file.”

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He says a brain that refuses to “close that file isn’t grief” because closing it would dismantle the attachment architecture that person helped build. “So that room is not a shrine,” Singh explains. “It’s a server that’s still running, and I don’t believe you’re in denial of their death. I honestly don’t. You’re in a silent war between two parts of your brain. The prefrontal cortex, which is the logical, forward-moving, knows that they’re gone, and the limbic system. The part that holds every memory of being loved by them.”

The doctor says that Bond’s Theory explains that there is no logical way to override that program breakdown. Picture it like the old Windows buffering signal. The computer is on, it’s running, but it can’t move forward, no matter which button you press to escape the screen. Due to this theory, Singh shares that getting rid of their things may feel like participation in their erasure.

Singh’s explanation resonated with viewers deeply. One person reveals, “This is awesome, thank you. Husband’s clothing still in closets and dresser, his two pair of running shoes still under the bed. Two years, 4 months since he passed.”

Another shares, “Thank you. I thought maybe I wasn’t dealing with my husband’s death 4 months ago very healthy….I can’t even remove his things from the shower as it feels like I’m moving him out of my life and that’s the last thing I want to do. He was ,y best friend and we were married 36 1/2 years and I miss him so much it hurts every day.

It took me 3 months to finally wash his dress socks and the entire time I was washing them I was asking myself why I was washing them and what I was going to do with them once they were all washed? I matched them and put them away in his drawer and thought to myself how silly I was as these are just “things” but these socks had his feet in them and I just can’t bare to get rid of things he touched or wore or used and Ona afraid of being a ridiculous pack rat, but I have given and will continue to give my 5 adult kids his things and try to figure out what to do with the rest.”

One grieving child writes, “This was good to hear. I lost my Mama 5 years ago, my parents live with my family and we’ve barely touched anything in her room, my Dad and me go in and sit ‘with her’ when we need to and although we have taken a few things out and moved some things around it’s basically as it was when we lost her that day… mug still there, slippers by the bed, clothes folded on the chair, clothes still hanging in the wardrobe, teddy on the bed and ornaments on the shelves etc all sitting there… like they’re waiting for her to come home.”

Someone else shares, “Wow, this makes so much sense. I walk into my father’s closet, touch the clothes, smell them and then close the door. That’s all I can do right now. I also am still paying for his phone.”

Music, community and joy drive real change

In a small village in Pwani, a district on Tanzania’s coast, a massive dance party is coming to a close. For the past two hours, locals have paraded through the village streets, singing and beating ngombe drums; now, in a large clearing, a woman named Sheilla motions for everyone to sit facing a large projector screen. A film premiere is about to begin. 

It’s an unusual way to kick off a film about gender bias, inequality, early marriage, and other barriers that prevent girls from accessing education in Tanzania. But in Pwani and beyond, local organizations supported by Malala Fund and funded by Pura are finding creative, culturally relevant ways like this one to capture people’s interest. 

The film ends and Sheilla, the Communications and Partnership Lead for Media for Development and Advocacy (MEDEA), stands in front of the crowd once again, asking the audience to reflect: What did you think about the film? How did it relate to your own experience? What can we learn? 

Sheilla explains that, once the community sees the film, “It brings out conversations within themselves, reflective conversations.” The resonance and immediate action create a ripple effect of change.

Across Tanzania, gender-based violence often forces adolescent girls out of the classroom. This and other barriers — including child marriage, poverty, conflict, and discrimination — prevent girls from completing their education around the world. 

Sheilla and her team are using film and radio programs to address the challenges girls face in their communities. MEDEA’s ultimate goal is to affirm education as a fundamental right for everyone, and to ensure that every member of a community understands how girls’ education contributes to a stronger whole and how to be an ally for their sisters, daughters, granddaughters, friends, nieces, and girlfriends. 

Sheilla’s story is one of many that inspired Heart on Fire, a new fragrance from the Pura x Malala Fund Collection that blends the warm, earthy spices of Tanzania with a playful, joyful twist. Here’s how Pura is using scent as a tool to connect the world and inspire action.

A partnership focused on local impact, on a global mission

Pura, a fragrance company that recognizes education as both freedom and a human right, has partnered with Malala Fund since 2022. In order to defend every girl’s right to access and complete 12 years of education, Malala Fund partners with local organizations in countries where the educational barriers are the greatest. They invest in locally-led solutions because they know that those who are closest to the problems are best equipped to solve and build durable solutions, like MEDEA, which works with communities to challenge discrimination against girls and change beliefs about their education. 

But local initiatives can thrive and scale more powerfully with global support, which is why Pura is using their own superpower, the power of scent, to connect people around the world with the women and girls in these local communities. 

The Pura x Malala Fund Collection incorporates ingredients naturally found in Tanzania, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Brazil: countries where Malala Fund operates to address systemic education barriers. Eight percent of net revenue from the Pura x Malala Fund Collection will be donated to Malala Fund directly, but beyond financial support, the Collection is also a love letter to each unique community, blending notes like lemon, jasmine, cedarwood, and clove to transport people, ignite their senses, and help them draw inspiration and hope from the global movement for girls’ education. Through scent, people can connect to the courage, joy, and tenacity of girls and local leaders, all while uniting in a shared commitment to education: the belief that supporting girls’ rights in one community benefits all of us, everywhere. 

You’ve already met Sheilla. Now see how Naiara and Mama Habiba are building unique solutions to ensure every girl can learn freely and dare to dream.

Naiara Leite is reimagining what’s possible in Brazil

In Brazil, where pear trees and coconut plantations cover the Northeastern Coast, girls like ten-year-old Julia experience a different kind of educational barrier than girls in Tanzania. Too often, racial discrimination contributes to high dropout rates among Black, quilombola and Indigenous girls in the country. 

“In the logic of Brazilian society, Black people don’t need to study,” says Naiara Leite, Executive Coordinator of Odara, a women-led organization and Malala Fund partner. Bahia, the state where Odara is based, was once one of the largest slave-receiving territories in the Americas, and because of that history, deeply-ingrained, anti-Black prejudice is still widespread. “Our role and the image constructed around us is one of manual labor,” Naiara says. 

But education can change that. In 2020, with assistance from a Malala Fund grant, Odara launched its first initiative for improving school completion rates among Black, quilombola, and Indigenous girls: “Ayomidê Odara”. The young girls mentored under the program, including Julia, are known as the Ayomidês. And like the Pura x Malala Fund Collection’s Brazil: Breath of Courage scent, the Ayomidês are fierce, determined, and bursting with energy.

Ayomidês take part in weekly educational sessions where they explore subjects like education and ethnic-racial relations. The girls are encouraged to find their own voices by producing Instagram lives, social media videos, and by participating in public panels. Already, the Ayomidês are rewriting the narrative on what’s possible for Afro-Brazilian girls to achieve. One of the earliest Ayomidês, a young woman named Debora, is now a communications intern. Another former Ayomidê, Francine, works at UNICEF, helping train the next generation of adolescent leaders. And Julia has already set her sights on becoming a math teacher or a model. 

“These are generations of Black women who did not have access to a school,” Naiara says. “These are generations of Black women robbed daily of their dreams. And we’re telling them that they could be the generation in their family to write a new story.” 

Mama Habiba is reframing the conversation in Nigeria 

In Mama Habiba’s home country of Nigeria, the scents of starfruit, ylang ylang and pineapple, all incorporated into the Pura x Malala Collection’s “Nigeria: Hope for Tomorrow,” can be found throughout the vibrant markets. Like these native scents, Mama Habiba says that the Nigerian girls are also bright and passionate, but too often they are forced to leave school long before their potential fully blooms. 

​​“Some of these schools are very far, and there is an issue of quality, too,” Mama Habiba says. “Most parents find out when their children are in school, the girls are not learning. So why allow them to continue?” 

When girls drop out of secondary school, marriage is often the alternative. In Nigeria, one in three girls is married before the age of 18. When this happens, girls are unable to fulfill their potential, and their families and communities lose out........

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