I wore my husband's wedding ring for four years after he died.
Then, in the middle of recording this episode, I took it off.
Not because I stopped loving him. Not because I've "moved on." And definitely not because somebody decided four years was the appropriate amount of time to grieve.
I took it off because grief had forced me to confront a harder question:
When does holding on stop honoring the person you lost and start keeping you from the life they helped prepare you to live?
In Episode 3 of The Grief Disruptor® Podcast, I'm talking about widowhood, letting go after loss, the objects we turn into proof of our love, and the grief police who appointed themselves authorities on what moving forward is supposed to look like.
We talk about the ring. His clothes. The hospital sheets I kept folded in my linen closet. And the realization that changed how I understand all of it:
What lives in your heart cannot be decluttered.
Taking off the ring doesn't erase my marriage.
Letting go of his things doesn't erase Dwaine.
And rebuilding my life doesn't mean I've stopped grieving the one we built together.
THREE TRUTHS FROM THIS EPISODE
1. Holding onto things is not the same as holding onto love.
The ring, the clothes, the toothbrush, the sheets. They can feel like proof that someone existed and that what you shared mattered. But letting go of an object cannot remove what lives inside you.
2. Nobody gets to decide when you're ready.
Not his family. Not your family. Not social media. Not some imaginary grief timeline. Moving forward after losing someone is deeply personal, and you don't owe anyone an explanation for when or how you choose to do it.
3. Sometimes honoring them means using what they gave you.
Dwaine didn't spend our marriage helping me build wings so I could refuse to use them after he died.
He gave me everything I needed to fly.
So I'm making room.
Not to forget him.
To fly.
The Grief Disruptor® Podcast is a raw, unfiltered conversation about grief, widowhood, identity, dating, parenting, rebuilding, and learning how to live after life doesn't go according to plan.
The G3 Framework: Grief → Grit → GlowUp
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ABOUT DONIELLE YOUNG
Donielle Young is The Grief Disruptor® and founder of MHDS Media. After losing her husband, Dwaine, to stage 4 colon cancer, she left a two-decade corporate career to build a platform challenging the rules, timelines, and expectations society places around grief.
The Grief Disruptor® Podcast is for the woman who is done being told how to grieve and ready to rebuild her life on her own terms.
If you've ever wondered whether letting go means you're leaving them behind, this episode is for you.
Subscribe, share the episode, and tell me in the comments:
What have you been afraid to let go of?
