Death, Dying, and Grief - The Importance of Planning for the End of Life as a Gift to Your Loved Ones with Dr Kimberly Harms

In this conversation, Dr. Kimberly Harms shares her profound experiences with grief and loss, detailing the impact of her mother's and son's deaths on her life. She discusses the importance of processing grief, the role of legacy planning, and how to support others through their grief journeys. Dr. Harms emphasizes the significance of reconciliation, forgiveness, and the need for community support in navigating the challenges of loss. She also highlights the importance of leaving a legacy of love and preparing for death to ease the burden on loved ones.

Dr. Harms has been around the block in life.  She has served as a Commissioned Officer in the United States Public Health Service, a dental school professor,  grief counselor, and death doula.  She is an award-winning, best-selling author and international speaker on the topics of grief, conflict and legacy planning. Her latest book, "Are you Ready, How to Build a Legacy to Die For." 

Dr Harms has also suffered many personal losses, including the deaths by suicide of her mother and son and the death by broken heart of her husband after their son’s death.  Her most important role now is mother to her two surviving children and grandmother to 6 precious grandchildren.

She shared this scripture with us - 

Romans 8:38-39 

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Wordens Four Tasks of Mourning
Her book Are You Ready? How to Build a Legacy to Die For
Dr Harms website

Transcript

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Annalouiza  
Today we are joined by Dr. Kimberly Harms. Dr. Harms has been around the block in life. She has served as a commissioned officer in the United States Public Health Service, a dental school professor, grief counselor, and death doula. 

She is an award-winning, best-selling author and international speaker on the topics of grief, conflict, and legacy planning. Her latest book, Are You Ready? How to Build a Legacy to Die For?

Wakil  
And we will put links in the podcast notes for all of that. Dr. Harms has also suffered many personal losses, including the deaths by suicide of her mother and son, and the death by broken heart of her husband after their son's death. Her most important role now is mother to her two surviving children and grandmother to six precious grandchildren. So great to have you with us. Thank you for joining us today.

Annalouiza  
Yes, welcome.

Kim Harms  
Well, thank you for having me on today.

Wakil  
So we'd like to begin our podcast interviews asking when you first became aware of death.

Kim Harms  
Well, the first death that I dealt with in a big way was that of my mother. I was 17 and it was a suicide. My mother was bipolar and she was mentally ill, of course. She had a number of issues to deal with, but she was the best mother the world has ever had. She was the best mother. We had her for six years.

We only had her for six years and then she was institutionalized. So when she died when I was 17, it was a devastating thing. And at that time, things have changed. But at that time, a death by suicide was not recognized within the churches and no pastor would allow her a church service. and we basically went to the funeral home and it was just dripping with shame. 

 And so that memory of death was not only horrible for me, the fact that I lost my mother, but even more horrible, worried about where was she now? Where was she for eternity? 

That was very different 35 years later. So that's the bad news. 35 years later, my son Eric, was different circumstances, he was a brilliant golden boy, I mean just a kind, caring, compassionate kid who was recruited by Columbia University, believe it or not, for engineering and also he was a jazz pianist, so he was in their jazz program. And he had the very best first semester you could imagine. He was elected to the student government at Columbia, like what the heck, because he didn't badmouth the other the other people he was running against. just said what he was going to do. Can you imagine that with the politics that he would, you know, just be positive? What the heck, right? We're proud of him for that and got elected and was doing great things there and played with even in some plays with the Barnard students. You know he just was so active at Columbia. 

Kim Harms  
 He came home his first semester on top of the world. We had never seen him happier. And he went back to school and two weeks later. His girlfriend broke up with him, which is a normal part of life. There's, you should break up with someone if you're not in love with them. I mean, that's, that's normal. But that impulsive jazz pianist brain, it was only 19 years old, not quite fully developed. didn't manage that well. And he was gone within 45 minutes of the breakup. Just bam. And our lives were shattered into a million pieces.

Wakil  
Wow.

Yeah.

Kim Harms  
Now I have to add one thing to that though. When we had the funeral for Eric, just to show you the differences in 35 years, my mother was Catholic. Eric went to a Catholic school. We were Baptist. He was a Baptist in a Catholic school. He was not at school anymore. He was at Columbia. He was at college. He was away. He wasn't even a student there anymore. For Eric's funeral, which was held, every pastor of the church showed up too, because he sang for the church.

They were there, every pastor, there were thousands of people there. Every pastor was there, gave a little talk. His school that he didn't even go to anymore showed up with buses of kids. The band, entire band showed up. He was the band director. Entire band showed up. This was an all-boys Catholic military school, they had uniforms. When we were up there and we talked about death by suicide, I could look out at this big, big hundreds of boys crying and telling them don't do this with this. didn't know what he was doing. This is the result. This is the result. 

And when Eric's, when his casket was being rolled down the aisle, all of those boys, hundreds of boys stood up in their dress uniforms saluting his casket and gave the absolute most amazing gift to his mother and his father and his family they ever could. So with that example, you can kind of see at least one thing that's happened is that churches and denominations, both the Catholic Church and the Baptist Church, did a complete 180 in how they managed suicide deaths. So I know that's a long answer for You got me into death. 

Annalouiza  
Ha ha ha

Kim Harms
So I got to, I got to death stories, let me tell you. But that's been my most impactful death experiences of course, of my life for those two.
 
Wakil  
Sure, yeah, wow, what an amazing and profound story. Touches my heart.

Annalouiza  
It's so profound. know. Well.

I'm grateful that you're sharing this too. it's a lot. What were you going to say, Wakil?

Wakil  
I love the, yeah, yeah. I love this scene of, I love this visual of hundreds of boys crying and saluting. 

Kim Harms  
It's a moving

Wakil
Yeah, what a beautiful, beautiful thing. We need more of that in the world.
 
Kim Harms  
He was very much loved and his little 19 years made more of an impact than I ever would, you know.

Wakil  
Yeah, yeah. Thank you again. Beautiful story.

Annalouiza  
It is, that is an immense impact on your life.

Kim Harms  
Hm hm

Annalouiza  
So can you share with us how these two very large stories have formed who you are and how you've lived your life?

Kim Harms  
Yes, I would, for the first, for both of these two, both of these two people, my mother and my son were unbelievably amazing. My mother who was, my mother taught me that I was also born with, my mother took thalidomide, which was also involved in some of her issues. She went into the institution right after she found out that thalidomide caused people to lose fingers and I was missing fingers. 

 So that, So I was kind of tied into a lot of things. were a lot of things going on, a lot of shame, a lot of guilt. Who's in common with these two people? It would be me, right? I'm the common link. All of these things that go around in your head that affect your recovery, that affect your ability to kind of get out of that pit. And I'll tell you something that happened to me that was probably one of the most important things ever after Eric died  that helped me and I hope will help other people going through a grief, a catastrophic loss of somebody is right after Eric died, I was coming out of my dental, because then you have to go back to work. How do you do that? mean, how do you survive again? Because we were just devastated. I was back at work, but in the zombie phase, anybody that's had a catastrophic loss knows that zombie phase where you kind of walk around like they're walking dead and you try to smile, you try to get by but inside you're dead. 

So I was walking on my office and my husband, Jim was talking with his brother, his cousin. And his cousin, they were having a very deep discussion, and his cousin ran up to me wagging his finger in my face, very angry, and said, don't you ever let your remaining children think for a moment that they are not enough. Don't you ever do that to them. And I was like, what? You know, I just, I'm a grieving mother. What, what, what are you saying? I mean, I'm dead anyway. What are you trying to do? Kill me again?

Wakil  
Haha.

Annalouiza  
Mm

Kim Harms  
And then I realized what he was saying. He had lost his brother when he was about the same age, about 17, 18, I think. And he felt that when he lost his brother, he lost his parents. It was a sudden death of drinking and his friends left him in the car outside the house. It was Minnesota. He froze to death. And his parents never, ever recovered. And what I mean by recovered, they just couldn't process the grief. They were down in the depths of that pit and couldn't get out.

And if they couldn't get out, they couldn't recognize that the other two children needed them. At least that was his interpretation. 

Wakil  
That's right.

Annalouiza  
Yeah. Wow.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Kim Harms  
So what he was telling me is, you've got other people out there, Kim, that need you. Don't lose, don't lose your life to them in your grief over this one son. You have two more daughters and you have a husband. And that's a hard thing to hear. It's not an easy thing to manage, but what it taught me was that you, you don't just kind of go through phases or stages. You got to fight, fight, fight to get out of the grief pit. You know, when I was down there, maybe like on one nostril, maybe with a little bit of air, you know, and you have to fight, fight, fight to get out of that grief pit. And that is a lesson I just hope that I learned. took a number of years, but that was always thinking I got my girls, I got my husband, I love them too. I got to fight for them. It's easier to fight for someone else than it is to fight for yourself.

Annalouiza  
Hm mm

Kim Harms  
But you're also fighting for yourself because getting out of that pit, it's a lot happier place to live outside of that pit where you can live in peace and joy than it is down there in that fear, know, deep pit. So that was a big lesson that I learned from that. 

And one that I continue to learn when my husband died, something I always keep in mind that I need to battle the grief and work for joy. And I have to tell you that I live mostly enjoying now, which I never thought would be possible when I was down at the bottom of that pit.

Wakil  
Wow.

Annalouiza  
That's amazing. But I also am really curious about, do you feel that there is like, it's okay to be in the grief for a while? do grief is important, right? 

Kim Harms  
It's a process.

Annalouiza  
So, I mean, certainly maybe a 10 year grief cycle might be a little over the top. Maybe, I don't know. But do you think there's a time when somebody would benefit from hearing that? 

Wakil  
Yeah, get back to work.

Annalouiza 
Because I kind of feel like the United States community at large doesn't ever allow for grief, right? They're like, you know, you're fine. Get up. Let's go like chop chop. Right. So, right. So there's like this like sweet spot that we actually have to bear our hearts to that grief, that darkness, that like just fatigue, that loss and right. 

Kim Harms  
Yeah.

Annalouiza  
Like there is a certain kind of like cycle through it and not just like land there and stay there. So I'm curious, like what, how do you discern? When that's the right time.

Kim Harms  
Well, about a year after my son died, then I lost my job because I had nerve damage and I went to Mayo Clinic and they said, you've got nerve damage in your drilling fingers. you're done. No more dentistry for you. I had some time in my hands. I started to know what the heck, right? Wasn't the worst thing that happened to me. But anyway, it was pretty bad. I was the breadwinner of the family.

But anyway, so I started studying to be a grief counselor. And one of the things I picked up with that just has stuck with me forever is something called Warden's Tasks of Mourning. And I think I just love the way he has them as tasks. I like Kubler -Ross's Stages of Grief. That's certainly very popular. But Tasks of Mourning. And what he says is the first task is you got to accept the loss, which of course, that's kind of hard. You want it to be a nightmare, right? You know, it's a nightmare. No, it's not. This is real.

But the second part is processing the grief. You have to process this. I wish so much that I could wake up in 20 years like Rip Van Winkle and I'd be fine, right? I wouldn't be fine. You have to process it. And when I say fight your way out of the pit, I really mean that's the processing part. You gotta work hard to fight your way out. And it takes time. I was not out. I mean, it took me a good, at least five years to kind of get my eyeballs above that pit level and then maybe another five or six to kind of just get to the joy spot. 

So it took a long time, but I like the idea of, I like those stages or the task because it gives me something to work for. And the first task, course, acceptance, processing, hard, hard, hard, and then adapting to your new environment. I had a new environment, no son, two daughters, okay. Family of four, not a family of five. You have to adapt to all those things.

That seems like a small adaptation, but anybody that's lost a son knows that just the number of your family changing psychologically does something to your head. I don't know what it is. And then the last one is finding a place, finding a comforting place to put that person and that grief and the memories, all those memories where you can live your life free from that shroud of grief but have those memories and keep that person in a real sacred place. 

And I just love that. And to me, that describes very, very clearly the process at least that I went through. And also everybody's grief journey is different. Just like people, if you're trying to get healthy, like I could have been, I've had 10 pounds I wanted to lose forever and now there's 20. I mean I just, I'm not really getting that stuff off. Some people can do it and I'm not real good at it.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Hahaha.

Annalouiza  
Hahaha

Kim Harms  
People work through the grief process differently as well. Some people can work through it a little more quickly. Some people are more slow about it. Some people can never get out. I mean, that's, I don't know if I'll ever get this 20 pounds off, but I still keep trying. And I just want to encourage people to keep trying and also not ever to judge somebody else's grief. I think that's the thing we get into trouble with. We can't judge somebody else's grief because you don't how all of the things involved in getting down there.

Wakil  
Yeah, yeah, we often talk about on this podcast that you need to meet people where they are. And that's part of our work as death counseling and working with people. Thank you, that's so important. 

Kim Harms  
Yes.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Well, also, we've read about some of your work and I'd like to hear more about it. Talk about how you do the work you're doing and helping people prepare and get ready. They sent your person who told us about you sent me a long list of the things you do. bring some of that in, let us know the kind of ways that you work with people.

Kim Harms  
Well, you I'm a widow now. When you become a widow, one of the things is, all of a sudden, like you're alone in your home, right? And I have these grandchildren. I probably would be stalking them every minute of the day if I did have something else to do. 

Wakil  
Ha ha

Kim Harms  
So one of the things that I really would be, they'd kick me out. But I really recommend that when you find yourself alone, which 75 % of women do, and then, you know, some men do too, you know, the smaller number, you find a purpose. You grab onto a purpose. What can you do? that could be helpful. 

The purpose that I grabbed onto at this point in time was realizing, you know, I found myself between, you know, menopause and death, right? Those two really good places. You what do I do? Well, know, menopause and death, hey. Well, we're all there. We're all there. So what can we do? And so I started researching, what can we do during this time to give our lives purpose and joy?

Not only that, and then by giving our lives purpose and joy, you give the people around you purpose and joy. It's a really good deal. And I started researching that when I, the first thing that happened was I happened to have a lot of amazing angels all around me. I've been blessed with wonderful friends. I just can't even tell you, and family. And two days after my husband died, I got a call from a dear friend who was 85 and whose husband is still alive, by the way.

She's not a widow, but she said, Kim, all of my friends are becoming widows. She's 85, they're by themselves, they're suffering. I decided I needed to do a widow's ministry. And your husband just died. It was two days after he died. So you want to be in the group? And I said, yes, yes, I will. And we started that week. So here I am. What a miracle is that?

You know, I'm going through this and all of sudden I get a little, and things like that happen with all of the deaths, I have to say. And so here I am a week later in a widow's group, all of us are widows. And when you get a group of people that have been through the same things, just kind of like Alcoholics Anonymous is a really good example, you can identify, can tell them the crazy thoughts that go through your head. know, like when I come home alone and I think, you if I died, nobody would know, you know, I these things that you know, that you wouldn't really want, of course, I've just told a whole bunch of people I thought that, you can talk about things that you really wouldn't express to most people. 

And so we laugh and we cry together sometimes at the same time. And we've been meeting for four years ever since my husband died once a week. And I wrote a book, the first book I wrote was about Naomi. Her name is Naomi, Naomi, the Widows Club, and she does devotions. She's been doing them for four years.

So I wrote a book, Naomi and the Widows Club, and it talks about the six widows, and then it's a weekly devotion for a whole year. So if someone, I actually did it, I got a group together and did a whole year devotion just using the book and the devotions of the book. So we started writing that. And then I realized, okay, now what do I need? I've always had something I had to do next. I would go to high school, college, dental school, then you work, because you're working to retirement, yay, retirement.

I kind of retired early, I never really quite got to that retirement part because it just happened to me. And then now what do I do? And the next thing I look up, menopause death, okay, I'm past menopause, what do I have next, death? So I thought, well, I need to prepare to die well. 

Wakil  
Mm

Kim Harms  
I need to really make sure that my kids know how much I love them by making sure I don't leave any mess behind.

And so I started researching that. And the first part of the book is developing legacies, because the best thing we can do is leave legacies, like legacies of love, resilience. What are legacies? Resilience is a big one. I have a lot about resilience. I can send lots of things about resilience. have my two granddaughters just were trying out for a play, and they didn't get the parts they wanted, know, and you know how that is for little kids. And so I can tell, could send them some stories about, get in, get back there, do the best you can to the part that you have. Don't worry about it. Just show, you know, just give 100 % all the time. 

Those are lessons that we can give to our families now. Because we have, you know, we may not be able to remember a lot and the words kind of get stuck in our head, but we have a lot of background. You know, we can really, there's a lot of things we can help them with. So I think passing those down is the first thing while we're here. But then when the time comes that we go, we need to make it so that it's as easy as possible for them to process our death. 

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Right.

Kim Harms  
And they're going to grieve. But I found in my research that about 57 % of families have a conflict involving death

Wakil  
Yeah.

Annalouiza  
Mm

Kim Harms  
...as things aren't put together right. And they're upset because grandpa died at home. They thought he should be in a hospital, but maybe grandpa wanted to die at home. And if he had a nice healthcare directive, you could tell. So I really focused on just getting all the things in order, everything, including legacy letters, legacy love letters. have templates written in the book about how to write a legacy love letter, legacy letter. talk the middle of the book, it's a little section on death and dying. Let's come to face with our death. Let's think about what we're going to die. Nobody wants to talk about that, but we are. Let's let's look at it right in the face and let's come to terms with it and let's do the best we can to make sure that after we die, our kids knew how much they were loved and they are stronger, that that next generation has a softer landing.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Kim Harms  
And they're emotionally resilient because we helped them get there. And so when I die, there's a little binder. It's like, let's open it up, bam, everything's there.

Wakil  
Hmm.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Annalouiza  
Yeah. That's awesome. Love it.

Wakil  
Perfect. Yeah. That's so great. mean, more and more we're seeing this. The last person we interviewed said that she has been doing this for 15 years and says, you know, she notices that it's finally starting to be more common and more spoken about. And people are finally starting to put things together, you know, whatever way they do. I think, Aunt Louisa said her dad keeps some stuff in a briefcase, you know. But at least it's something, you know.

Annalouiza  
Hahaha, yeah.

Wakil  
And maybe this may be an exception because Analouiza has so much thinking about this and myself too. But you're right, it's so important and such a gift. I'm doing a class tomorrow actually on how to prepare all those little odds and ends and details and practical things that you can do so that you've given that gift to your loved ones when you're done. So is there anything else in the work that you're doing that you want to speak about? I think you hit most of it.

But anything else before we move on?

Kim Harms  
I did. One of the things as we're talking about that, because my focus is really on the emotional component of surviving death, basically kind of preventative grief, know, because they're going to go through grief and maybe I could prevent that being quite, maybe they want to go down quite so deep in the pit, you know, if I can help them. You know, I'm a dentist, we do prevention well, you know, keep them up a little bit. So that's my big focus. 

And I think reconciliation and apologizing when necessary is very important. My husband, I tell you just a quick story, my husband died twice. He was in hospice and he was in, we have a walk in tub and I was getting his oxygen off and all of a sudden he just went, just was gone. No pulse, no breathing, he was gone. And I tried giving him some rescue breathing, nothing happened, nothing works. About five minutes I was trying to do that. And I called the hospice nurse, and by the way, I love hospice people. I called the hospice nurse and he said, I'm so sorry, I'll come right over. Called my daughter, was on the phone with her, know, dad, he's passed away. We were expecting maybe another six months, you know, he went, we didn't know he was so close. We were just, you know, crying on the phone and all of sudden, 20 minutes at least after the last breath, he was in the tub. He just went, in the movies. was like, in the movies, it wasn't even, it wasn't like, it was like.

Wakil  
my God.

Kim Harms  
You know, what the heck? You know, what the heck? Really, this really did happen. And so I dropped him. He's alive! And I dropped him. And at the same time, the hospice nurse was at my door. So somehow she had to get into her car, come to my place, get through all the security. So it had to be at least 20 minutes. I mean, you're not checking the clock. I wasn't expecting it. 

Annalouiza  
Wow.

Wakil (24:06.9)
Hahaha!

Annalouiza  
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wakil  
Ha

Kim Harms  
I wasn't timing him. Anyway, so there he was. He was breathing normally. But he wasn't conscious. And I thought, no, now I've put him into a coma because you I really screwed, know, how you go through these crazy things when people are dying because you're so sad. It's just such an emotional turmoil. So the hospice nurse got him back in the bed.

And he woke up and he was perfectly there. His brain was there. The body was shot. He couldn't move. had a catheter. He couldn't move. But his brain was there, which is another miracle. So I called his whole family and said, hey, you know what? Jim might not be around very much longer. So we kind had a little living funeral, right? 

Annalouiza  
Ahhh

huh.

Kim Harms  
We brought everybody over. We had a big party. He got all the ice cream. He was diabetic. So I just took the things that's on. I was making sure he wasn't going to go up against the wall.

But he was having ice cream, whatever he wanted. And we had this big family gathering, all the kids were on the bed, you know. We were just, it was a beautiful moment. But most importantly, he had a brother that had not talked to him in twenty years. And he, he came in. Not only did he come in but he came in with videotape of when they climbed Mount Whitney. Remember those old, their not videos the old reels

Annalouiza  
Films...

Kim Harms  
Films that click click click click click. He brought his old film projector, and click click on the wall.

Wakil  
Wow.

Kim Harms 
And we sat there and watched videos of when he was 25 years old climbing Mount Whitney from his dying, his death bed really. And the rest of the family called in on Zoom and he talked to everybody. And then that happened to have been the birthday of my son, our son's 31st birthday. We were having a party for his dad. And then early the next morning he passed away again. 

So that reconciliation part is so critical because not only did Jim, I you should have seen his face. I see pictures of him, you know, that day he just, you know, he was dying, but he just was so happy that he had reconciled with his brother. But now his brother also is happy 

Annalouiza  
Hmm.

Wakil  
Right.

Kim Harms  
Because he reconciled before it was too late. And I don't think many of us get those little deathbed opportunities. Like, this is not a little opportunity. So reconcile with people. Forgive people, apologize to people. That's part of your job before you go. It's the cleanup endless two.

Wakil  
Yeah, yeah, that's so important to make it to make that an intention...

Annalouiza  
Wow.

Kim Harms  
Yeah.

Wakil
...to intentionally make sure you reach out and take care of any of those leftover problems. Yeah, thank you so much for that reminder. Very important. Yeah.

Annalouiza  
Mm hmm. So beautiful. Yes. So what are your biggest challenges when you're out in the world sharing this, your book, your studies, your your values? 

Wakil  
Work.

Annalouiza
Yeah, your work. What are your challenges?

Kim Harms  
Well, COVID's been a big bugger lately. I just got that last week. That wasn't very much fun. But I think, you know, there's the interesting thing is there are not a lot. think most of us procrastinate. One of the things that people feel like is, you know, they're going to get all this money. They're going to get my house. I don't need to worry about it. They can figure it all out themselves. But what they don't realize is the conflict, that conflict that's involved when they're trying to figure out what you want, when you could easily solve that yourself.

I like that it's trying to get people over that hump of it is work. And it's a gift of love in that you're doing a lot of work so that they don't have to. 

Annalouiza  
Right.

Kim Harms  
And I think that's something I try to get people over. But procrastination and being fearful. But what I'm finding is, and I talk to a lot of people, I'm in the last quarter of my life. I know where I am. And either you're in the last quarter or you don't know because you never know what's going to happen. But I could do the math.
 figure out over the last quarter. 

So I deal with most people who kind of know they're in the last quarter. So they're like, okay, my clock is ticking, I better get going. But it's important for everybody, no matter where you are in your life, 

Annalouiza  
That's right.

Kim Harms  
Because something could happen to you. And you want to leave your loved ones with that message that you love them. And I know that for instance, when my daughters are going through their legacy binder...

Annalouiza  
folders.

Kim Harms
...we're going to see like the title to my car and all these documents and the passwords, and then they're going to see a love letter to them. 

Annalouiza  
Mmm.

Wakil  
Yeah.

Kim Harms  
And then they're going to see a love. I have a love letters to every one of them. And then they're going to just be reminded after I'm dead, it's a way you show your love. After your life is over. 

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Kim Harms
And I just, I want to just kind of get that thought through people's heads that you can continue to do that. And of course, the most important legacy ever, you could ever leave anyone is a legacy. My mother left me with only six years and that's a legacy of love that you were loved and cared for, and that you could pass that love on to others.

So if you could do that, that is the greatest legacy you could ever give. You don't have to win an Academy Award or any of those things. It doesn't really matter. It's that legacy of love you passed on to the next generation that strengthens them and builds them up.

Annalouiza  
That's so beautiful. Yep.

Wakil  
Yeah, beautiful, yeah, challenges, the challenges of getting past that, the feeling that we can't talk about this, right? That we shouldn't talk about this. Somebody actually said, talking about it will make it happen. It's not going to work that way. Doesn't work that way.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm. Right.

Right. Yeah.

Kim Harms  
And just to add to that, I had a dear friend whose wife was dying and they knew she was dying, but they were expecting a miracle. She had a lot of property and stuff that was in her name that where things could have been taken care of in an hour, just with her signature of just so easy. But the family wouldn't even approach it because they felt that if they asked her to take care of that, they would be admitting that she was dying.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Kim Harms  
and they would be betraying her. And I thought, no. So why not get this all done before you're dying so you don't have any of that stuff, right? Just do it before you.

Annalouiza  
Yeah.
Right.

Wakil  
Yeah, yeah.

Annalouiza  
Well, and that's a big piece. And I think people think about property and trusts and wills. But just this weekend, I had a friend come by and I said, we need to work on our advanced care directives because I actually should update mine because I've got some new names that I need to add to this and shift it. But he was, he's like, yeah, I've got it done. I've already decided that this is a trust. I was like, no, no, your advanced care directive plan, what's going to happen in case of an emergency, a medical emergency, right?

And he couldn't actually talk about that. Like he just he was like, well, it's just just pull the plug. I was like, but does your family know? Right. Like we don't. There's we also have to scaffold this language around. Yes, this the estate and the trust in the wills and your body and the funeral and, you know, like the conversation. So we have work to do. Right. But yeah, like.

Wakil  
Ha ha, Yeah.

Annalouiza  
People, it's okay. Like it's a beautiful journey when you start talking about these things.

Wakil  
Yeah, yeah, and great gift. Thank you. That's really true. Appreciate that. 

What helps you feel supported in this work? Do you have practices or prayers or things that you do to help you stay centered and help you stay out of the pit, if you will, or to, you know, things that you've used as things get hard, things get hard in this work and ways that you've found that help you be supported and stay centered and stay in that place of joy.

Kim Harms  
I've been so fortunate. I've got just my church friends, my widow friends. I got lots of different groups now. But one of the, they've all been very supportive of me, all been helping me and encouraging me. But one group in particular stands out and that those are the Rwandans. After Eric died, we were able to, just somehow God put Rwanda into my head and I ended up in Rwanda through Books for Africa. 

I have a dear friend, Pam Pappas, who was on the Board of Books for Africa. So we ended up doing libraries, memorial libraries for Eric in Rwanda. And Rwanda is one of the most amazing countries ever because they went through this horrific genocide in 1994. So it's 30 years later. I went back about 16 years later when the prisoners were still in prison. 

And if you can imagine, your neighbors coming over and horribly killing and mutilating your family and burning down your houses. That's what was happening. It wasn't an invading army. was like their neighbors. Horrible, horrible, horrible thing. 

How do you get over that? How do you recover from that? And I was drawn to that because I thought, I didn't know how I was going to recover from Eric's death. I didn't know how I was going to recover at all. And I went there and they were the world's best grief counselors by far, 

Annalouiza  
Hmm.

Kim Harms  
Because what they did is they decided as a country that if they didn't take care of the problem now, their children would just relive it. It was never going to go away. 

So they decided to seek justice. the perpetrators, many of them escaped other countries, but the ones that were left were put in jail for 20 years. But then, and when I was there, when I was there, 16 years later, they were, the prisoners were walking down the street, 20 prisoners along with a guard on either side. And the prisoners had hoes and machetes and all that kind of stuff in their hand because they were farming their own food, right? That's what they did. And I looked outside and I said, my gosh, know, Father Remy was my guide. My gosh, Father Remy, what? This is dangerous. Look, they have all the tools of the genocide and there's just two guards and there's like 30 prisoners. How can they do that? This is very dangerous. 

And he said, he looked at me like I was crazy. And he said, "What!, they're not going to do that. Where would they go? They'd just go back to their houses. Their families would send them right back to jail because they have to serve out their sentence." 

And I thought, what the heck? And then after the sentence, they come back into the villages. A little village council sits around and decides how they're going to make amends to the families they hurt. And they're drawn back, sometimes building a house for the person. 

Wakil  
Wow.

Annalouiza  
Hmm.

Kim Harms  
They also many times become friends with the people that they whose families they killed. How does that, it just boggles your mind. Those are the people, when I saw those women in Rwanda who had lost their families, who could smile at, had this wonderful smile at me, have joy again. And when I told them I was there because I lost my son and that these libraries were memorial libraries, just came at me and embraced me with the love I had never felt in my life. And their country is at peace. It's one of the safest countries in Africa.

Annalouiza  
Yeah.

Yeah.

Kim Harms  
It's just as safe according to our State Department is Canada. I tell people, if you go to Canada, you shouldn't be afraid to go to Rwanda. It's more dangerous to go to places in Europe. So if you ever want to just do an amazing study, look at what's happened in Rwanda, how they built their country up from really absolute devastation. 

Wakil  
Ha ha ha.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm. Wow.

Wakil  
Right.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Kim Harms  
So that story gave me so much strength. I thought, well, if they can do it, I mean, can, I can have joy too.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Wow, beautiful. Wow, what a unique way of finding joy, yeah, to see it in. Yeah, that's beautiful. And you said, how many libraries now did you say were? Yeah.

Kim Harms  
We have 65 libraries. all over the country. We have four legal libraries, are great. They were Books for Africa is a great organization, and they have a special law and democracy initiative that Kofi Annan and Walter Mondale put together. we have four of those there, and we have medical libraries and little baby nursery libraries. 

And they're all over, and I go back to visit my favorite, the village libraries, which are now like kind of little little cultural centers, you people come and spend time there. And I just, and just as things are, how God has things happen, they just used English as a main educational language in 2009. So up until then it was French and I probably don't have as many French books. So the program that I was able to help put in, along with Pam, was very, very valuable because they were in so desperate need of English books. It was was 2011 when we went there.

Wakil  
Mm.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm. Wow.

Wakil  
Well, great. Nice. what a great speaking of legacies. That's a great legacy. Yeah.

Kim Harms  
You know, it's a legacy for Eric and he was a book lover. He would find books in libraries and save them if they were trying to get rid of classic books, he would go save them.

Wakil  
That's good. Beautiful. Yeah.

Annalouiza  
That's beautiful. So what what frightens you about the end of your life?

Kim Harms  
You know, I'm a Christian, so I'm thinking I'm not really frightened because I really believe I'm going to be reunited with them. I got the people up there now that I'd to see again. I think the thing I regret about, you I hope I live as long as I can, is that I have got these six grandchildren. And, you know, there's people in your lives that only you can affect. You know, I'm a maternal grandmother. They've got one maternal grandmother, and that's me. They've got great paternal grandparents, too, though, so I have to say that's a thing.
  
But you there's a special bond. And so I'm gonna really miss them and I just want to help them as much as I can. But I am not, I have no fear whatsoever about my own death, especially now that I'm ready. 

Annalouiza  
Beautiful. Yeah.

Wakil  
Hmm.

Kim Harms
Now I did have it before, I thought my kids are gonna have to go through all this stuff. And now it's like, hey, you guys are gonna, I got it all set. We're all gonna be fine.

Annalouiza  
Hahaha. That's awesome. I love it.

Wakil  
That's a great way to avoid that fear, that particular fear. Yeah, get it done. Get the work done. Yeah, we've heard several people say that the biggest fear is what's going to how their children are going or husbands or whatever, you know...

Annalouiza  
Whoever's left, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Wakil (38:44.9)
...people left behind are going to have to deal with. so and the idea of not leaving a mess, like you said, don't leave a mess and, you know, getting things done.

So thank you, that's great.

Annalouiza  
Yeah.

Kim Harms  
One thing I'd just like to add is that there are companies that a lot of people don't realize that there are companies out there that are all set up to come and take all your stuff away. And so I put money in my, 

Wakil  
Heh.

Annalouiza  
Yeah.

Kim Harms
I put in an amount of money, says, okay, this is for the, you guys go take what you want and these companies are going to come and take it away. That way, nobody has to be stuck cleaning out, the old firewalls or whatever. So I think that that's a brand new market that I think is fabulous.

Wakil  
Yeah, yeah, we've we've used those. Those are great. They're great. Yeah, when we moved from our big house to smaller condo and we downsized when our kids moved out, we we really is funny because more we had a bigger truck that came and took all our junk than the truck that we moved. It's like. 

Annalouiza  
Yeah.
That's awesome. Yeah.

Wakil
Kind of scary. But yeah, that's a great idea. I love the idea of putting that in your will or putting it in your advanced care directed.

Annalouiza  
Yeah, prepping for that.

Wakil  
You know, here's some money to call these guys up, them come deal with that for you. Perfect. That's a beautiful idea.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah, I was, I was thinking about this a lot too in the last few weeks because our cat passed away recently and my kids, an 18-year-old and a 15-year-old old had a very long conversation about how to dispose of our cat's body. And my son had very, very, very firm feelings about one thing and my daughter had it the other way. And I've always said, you can do whatever you want with my body. don't really. I'm going, I'm going back home to like, it doesn't matter. 

But now I realize that is important for me to decide so that they don't argue about it. Right. Right. 

Wakil  
Hahaha.

Annalouiza  
Because I don't want that to be an issue. And you know, my son comes over all the time and he's like, when you die, I just really want all your clothes and I want all your toys. And you know, my daughter's like, well, I want some of the toys too. So was like, I need to actually make a list of all these really cool vintage toys that they love and decide because. would be the worst thing in the world for them to like bicker over an old toy right so that's kind of my task right now

Wakil  
Yeah, yeah. And you told the story too of a couple that rented a place up in the woods when they knew that they were at the end of life and started inviting all their friends over and said, tell us what you'd like. 

Annalouiza  
Take it.

Wakil
You know, here's some, I like the idea of bringing people into our home. Start bringing our friends and our family in our home and say, take it now.

Annalouiza  
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that was that New York Times article about a couple who opened up their home after their kids had gone through and picked out their items. They had all of their friends, every single come and take whatever you want. It's yours. Like I thought that was such a beautiful gift. Yeah.

Wakil  
Yeah. It's a beautiful idea. 

Kim Harms  
I love that.

Wakil
Is there anything, Dr. Kim, that we have missed that you wish we'd have asked you?

Kim Harms  
No, I think that the main focus is just do your best to show your love after your life. And I have a book is available. I'm also doing a course called Love After Life and just that the people need a little more selective, you know, do it, they get all done at once, this follow sequence and then it's done at the end. So I'm doing that too. But otherwise, no, think that's my main focus is just remember that show how much you love your kids after you die.

Wakil  
It's beautiful, beautiful. Thank you so much for that. We will put all those notes in the podcast notes so people can find a way to connect to you. And we really appreciate you and the work you're doing and your willingness to show up and to come and come and work with us today. Talk to us today.

Kim Harms  
Thank you.

Annalouiza  
Yeah.

Annalouiza  
And Wakil, should we have her read her scripture?

Wakil  
Yeah, do you want to read that scripture that you sent us as we like to end with a beautiful quote or poetry? 

Annalouiza  
Yeah.

Kim Harms  
I want to just tell a quick story that when I was in my office after my son died and I had a meltdown and I was melting down, wondering where is my son, where is my son, where is my son? And a dentist down the street from us, his name was Lyndon Dungey, he's Tony Dungey's brother, if you know who Tony Dungey is, Tony Dungey's brother. 

And he was sending letters in the mail, but for some reason this day he wrote this letter came by my office, dropped it off, and as I was crying in the stairwell with two other dental, know, my staff members around me crying with me, just trying to, you know, and anyone who's lost a son, you know, you go through these crazy times where you just can't get yourself together. And I was crying, crying, crying. And I was wondering where he was because it was a suicide. And you kind of wonder again, the churches that got together, but you always still wonder where is he now? Where is he now?

As I was crying, my office manager ran in, gave me this letter from Lyndon Dungey, who had delivered it himself right at that moment. And he highlighted a verse. I opened it up from Romans 8, 38 to 39. 

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth or anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

And that was a moment, that was another lightning moment that I just felt I was being told my son's in heaven with God, and which is of course your mother, that is the most important thing.

Wakil  
Yeah, yeah. Nothing can separate us from that love. That's so great. Well, thank you so much. Beautiful, beautiful conversation, and we're very glad to have had you with us.