Dr. Kimberly Harms’ many life roles have included serving as a Commissioned Officer in the United States Public Health Service, a dental school professor, a civil mediator, a clinical dentist, the President of an international women’s organization, and a National Spokesperson for the American Dental Association. She is also a death doula, a grief counselor, an award-winning, bestselling author, and an international speaker on the topics of grief, conflict, and legacy planning. Having suffered the deaths by suicide of her mother and son and the death by broken heart of her husband after their son’s death, Kim knows from personal experience that it is possible to prepare for a healing path to joy and peace no matter what life brings. Be sure to tune in for this powerful interview, as Kim shares the wisdom she has gained through tragedy, how she pulled herself out of her pit of despair, the tasks of mourning, the importance of overcoming grief and challenges in our lives to leave a legacy of joy and resilience, and so much more!
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT THINGS LIKE:- Kim’s son Eric’s experience of seeing an angel.
- The way Kim discovered her lifesaving change of attitude.
- The difference between grief and mourning.
- How the combination of medication and psychotherapy helped to treat Kim’s depression.
- Bringing hope for the holidays after loss.
- What was your experience after your son Eric’s death, when the phone rang, and you heard Eric’s voice?
- What are the four tasks of mourning?
- What important emotional legacies can be left to a person’s loved ones after death?
- Why were you called to Rwanda after the death of your son Eric?
- Why do you say that healing is not a passive event?
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Dr. Kimberly Harms: Is There a Healing Path to Joy and Peace No Matter What Life Brings?
Early Experiences with Loss and Grief
Is there a healing path to joy and peace no matter what life brings? You’ll want to tune in to this very touching and wise interview with Kimberly Harms to find out how Kim was able to pull herself out of the depths of despair after the suicide of her son, the suicide of her mother, and the death of her husband. You’ll also want to know how Kim’s son reached out from the other side and how Kim talks about how we can prepare our children for emotional success after we die. She talks about how to overcome grief and challenges and the legacy you lead. Come join us. Blessings.
I’m speaking to you from my studio in West Orange, New Jersey. I could not be more delighted to have the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Kimberly Harms whose many life roles have included serving as a commissioned officer in the United States Public Health Service, a dental school professor, a civil mediator, a clinical dentist, a school board chair, the president of an international women’s organization, the first woman president of the Minnesota Dental Association, and a national spokesperson for the American Dental Association. In addition to her impressive roles in dentistry, Kim is also a death doula, a grief counselor, an award-winning best-selling author, and an international speaker on the topics of grief, conflict, and legacy planning. She has been featured on CBS, NBC, CNN, ABC, FOX News, and NDR. Her latest book titled, Are You Ready?: How to Build A Legacy to Die For, won the 2024 Pacific Book Awards for best inspirational book. If you have faced pain and suffering like Kim has, having suffered the deaths by suicide of her mother and son and the death by a broken heart of her husband after their son’s death, Kim knows from personal experience that it is possible to prepare for a healing path to joy and peace no matter what life brings. Kim uses her heartbreaking story to help others with the wisdom she has gained through tragedy. She considers her most important role in life to be a mother to her 2 surviving children and grandmother to her 6 precious grandchildren. I’m looking forward to asking Kim, who will be speaking to us from Bloomington, Minnesota, about her heartbreaking personal losses, how she pulled herself out of her pit of despair, the tasks of mourning, the importance of overcoming grief and challenges in our lives to leave a legacy of joy and resilience, why healing is not a passive event, and so much more for what is sure to be a profoundly touching, inspiring, and wisdom-filled interview.—
Kim, a warm, heartfelt welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. It’s such a privilege to be here. Thank you. I feel the same way about having you here. You’re amazing. Your story’s amazing. You’re such a wonderful role model. Let’s start from the beginning so people understand where you started and where you are. You learned about loss, challenge, and grief at an early age. Could you please describe the physical issues you were born with in your relationship with each of your parents? When I was born, I was born missing some fingers on my right hand, and then I also had some spinal abnormalities. It was hard for my parents. It was hard for my mother, especially. She was a hand model. That had something symbolic there because I wasn’t going to be one of those. She was a wonderful mother. My mother was fabulous. She suffered from bipolar disease but she was a fabulous mother. Mental illness does not disqualify you from being a good parent because she couldn’t have been any better. My father, on the other hand, was brilliant. He was a rocket scientist. He designed this pentagon. He was brilliant but not-so-brilliant in the relationship category. When I was three, my parents divorced. When my parents divorced, we lived with my mother and my grandmother. Those were happy years. Mental illness does not disqualify you from being a good parent. Share on X When I was six, my father discovered that there was a drug that my mother had taken. It was being tested in the United States in Cincinnati, Ohio. She happened to be passing through cross country. We were going out to California. She was suffering from car sickness and morning sickness. A friend of hers knew someone who was testing this new drug for morning sickness called thalidomide. She took some tablets at that time. In the early ‘60s, they discovered that thalidomide had caused the loss of arms, legs, limbs, and fingers, and many birth defects all over Europe and also in Australia where it had been on the market. There are still some survivors here in the US but not very many because it was never accepted by the FDA. That was a good thing for the United States. My mother at the time was emotionally fragile to begin with. That was enough to send her over the edge. She went into an institution and was committed. My father came out and got us and brought us home to his brand-new wife. Before they got married, he forgot to tell her that he had kids. He left out that little detail, so she had no idea. He forgot to tell her. When they got married and she found out that he did have kids, she said, “Don’t worry. You’ll never have to take care of them,” and my mother. You can imagine, here she is pregnant with her first child and Dad drops the three of us off at her doorstep and then goes back on ship. He was in the Navy. He goes back to command a ship. You don’t really have to imagine too much to know that was not a good situation. We lived in very difficult circumstances growing up. She resented you with everything inside of her. It was a very difficult thing. There was such a difference because my wonderful mother, one thing she showed us in six short years, because I was six, was she gave us enough love to last a lifetime. She truly did. There are all kinds of new attachment theories out there that say that the love and care you get in those first years is critical to your future happiness and future relationships. Happiness, research shows, is based on relationships. That is such a critical piece. My ability to survive what I have is based upon those six years with my mother. Unfortunately, when I was seventeen, my mom’s bipolar disease got the best of her. She took her own life and passed away. That was a very difficult time for my sister, brother, and I. We got through that. It was hard. I suffered a lot of depression at that time too. I was also suicidal myself. I know what it’s like to be in that pit and want to say, “It’s going to be easier to be gone than to be here.” I understood where she had been. That probably helped me at least understand my mother. Life went on and things got better. I went to the University of Maryland. In my first week, I met a really cute guy named Jim Harms. He wanted to go to dental school. I was taking courses in biology because I was going to be a psychiatrist and save my mother, but then she was gone so I had no purpose at that point in those first couple of months. I thought, “Dental school? I’m taking all the right classes.” This was the ‘70s. I was like, “Maybe if I went to dental school and had a good job, Jim would marry me.” He did. The plan worked. I had to get over with, “Are they going to accept me with seven fingers?” They did. The plan worked. We did get married. We went to dental school together. We were commissioned officers in the public health service together, and then we opened up a practice together. We had three amazing children and life was good again. Later on, in 2004, I lost my nephew to suicide. There was another suicide in the family. He also was a very brilliant young man who was doing his doctorate thesis. He apparently missed it somehow. Maybe a little alcohol was involved. He jumped off the highest building he could find in Tokyo. That was devastating to our family. A couple of years later, my brother died of a heart attack at 56. A month later, my husband, Jim, was diagnosed with liver cancer. Most people, when you have cancer, you get online and you start looking for what the chances are. Everything kept saying, “He has less than a 5% chance of living for five years.” That was the first experience with thinking, “I’m going to be a widow. What’s going on here?” Fortunately, he got a liver transplant. That was a miracle because it is very difficult to get in so quickly. We sold half of our dental practice because I couldn’t manage it all by myself. Jim was going to be practicing part-time. On January 31st, 2009, our lives exploded. Our son, Eric, was a freshman at Columbia. He was a brilliant, wonderful kid. He has a rocket scientist brain but he also has a big heart. He had been recruited by Columbia. He was studying engineering, but he was a brilliant jazz pianist as well. That’s why Colbumia was so good for him. He could be in the engineering program and play in the jazz program. He was living the dream. He was doing both of those things. He even got elected to student government at Columbia. He plays with a student from Barnard. His whole life was going great. He came home for the first semester and was on top of the world. He made the Dean’s List in engineering. He was so happy. He went back, and then 2 weeks later, 45 minutes after a breakup with his girlfriend, the final breakup, he took his life as well. He had an impulsive brain. Our lives shattered into a million pieces. At that point in time, I didn’t think I’d ever experience joy again. I was at the bottom of that pit, trying to sniffle from the blood. You know how that is. You can’t see anything. The rest of the story is about how I was able to find joy again. I live a very joyful life.Spiritual Experiences
That’s beautiful. Before we get to all of that, there are two spiritual things that happened in your life that I really want to touch on for our audience. I know that your son, Eric, had an experience with an angel during an accident when he was eight years old. I also know that after he passed, the phone rang and you heard his voice and there were other visions. Can you talk about all of that? That’s so amazing that those things happened to you. Interestingly enough, Eric, when he was younger, thought that he was not going to have a long life. It was a premonition. When he was eight years old, he was in the car and was involved in a car accident in our small town of Farmington, Minnesota. Two boys were killed. It was a seventeen-year-old driver. He was driving on slippery roads. There were turns and he was going too fast. Jim could not have done anything to prevent it and there were witnesses for that. That was good for him, at least for his healing because it was a horrible experience for him. During the accident, Eric woke up. He had been sleeping in the car, woke up from the accident, and said he saw an angel sitting next to him. He said, “Mom, it didn’t really look like an angel, but it was an angel.” I said, “How do you know?” He said, “It was a man. He was a little portly.” Most of the angels that you think of when you’re eight years old are beautiful women singing with beautiful voices. This was an ordinary-looking man. He said, “Mom, he didn’t talk to me with his voice. He talked to me with his mind.” I thought, “Okay then, eight-year-old.” He said, “Your dad is not dead. He’s sleeping. You need to wake him up and get him out of the car because it’s dangerous in here.” The first thing that Jim remembers is Eric saying, “Dad, we have to get out of the car. It’s dangerous in here,” which are the words that the angel said. Later after the accident, he told a psychologist this because we wanted to get him some help after this experience. The psychologist asked him, “Where did you see the angel last?” The people that were around had taken Eric out of the car and gotten him off to the side of the road. Jim went to try to help the boys that were in the car. He had pulled them out and they were dead. Jim had realized that these boys were dead. He was standing over their bodies crying. There was another man who was in a truck behind him also standing over the bodies and also crying. Eric said, “The angel was standing between Dad and that other man and had his arms around them.” This is a little eight-year-old. I get goosebumps when I even say that story because none of that imagery is anything that he had any previous exposure to. He gave me that understanding that we’re a part of a much bigger world and the world that we see is not the full world. That becomes a big part when you’re trying to understand where you are in the universe and what your place is. This is part of it. That was the first one. After he died, I was at the bottom of that grief pit. I didn’t think I could live one more day. I couldn’t understand how this could happen. My husband and my two daughters had very vivid dreams of Eric coming and talking with them, giving them advice and things that they had not heard, and wearing clothing that they had never seen because 1 was off in college and 1 was in law school. It was phenomenal. Those dreams gave them so much comfort. My husband had a vivid dream about Eric going off to another place that he could not follow. That was an interesting dream. I was feeling a little left out because I didn’t quite get the dreams that the rest of my family had gotten, but one night, as I was waking up, all of a sudden, I had this very vivid vision of the phone ringing. I picked up the phone and on the other side was Eric’s voice. As a mother, you can tell how your child is feeling from that first syllable. I got to the phone and all I heard was, “Hi, Mom.” I was like, “Eric, where are you?” I woke up. That’s all I heard. That gave me such peace, understanding that he was okay. Part of my past thinking is very hard. I’m a Christian, so I believe Jesus gave up His life for our sins and for us. I said, “God, you had this deal with your son. He gave up his life for our sins. Let me do that for Eric. If this suicide has caused any problem with him getting to a good place, I’ll take his place and go through whatever I need to go through.” I had other experiences later on that God assured me that that was not going to be necessary and that he was in a good place. I have interviewed many people who have unfortunately lost children to suicide or spouses to suicide. They have all communicated with mediums and they come through from the other side. They’re fine. That’s very reassuring. There’s no judgment there. I had those 3 experiences with young people from 3 different parts of the country, including one of my nieces who came up to me at 3 different times and said, “I had this vivid dream. Eric came back to me.” He used to do this jig. He was like Robin Williams’ character. He was very jolly. He used to do a jig. They said, “He’s fine. He’s okay. It was an accident. He’s so sorry.” Hearing it 3 different times for 3 different people, the exact same vision gave me peace. I was thinking, “How come I didn’t get that vision?” That’s okay. Whoever is in charge, we’ll talk about that later on. I can relate to that. I’d be like, “I’m his mother. Give me some of this,” but it was wonderful. It gave me the peace that I needed when I needed it.Finding Inspiration
That’s beautiful. Something else that was beautiful happened to you. Here you are, in the pit of despair, and you meet this guy named Carl who was also a pit of despair dweller. He inspired a life-saving change of attitude within you. Could you tell us that story? It was phenomenal. I was coming out of my dental office maybe a month or two a little while after Eric died. I was in the zombie phase. Anyone who has been through a very depressing thing, you’re dead on the inside but you’re trying to work. You’re trying to look like a human being on the outside but you’re really dead on the inside. I was coming out of the office and I saw Jim and his cousin engaged in this very serious discussion. When Carl saw me, he came up to me with his finger wagging in my face. I was a grieving mother, so I’m not used to this. People were pretty nice to me. He came up and he had so much energy, pain, and anger. He came up and he, in my face, said, “Don’t you ever let your remaining children feel that they are not enough. Don’t you do that to them.” It was like a lightning bolt hit me. He had lost his brother at about Eric’s age. He felt that he lost his parents at the same time. He felt that his parents couldn’t focus on their living children because they were overcome with grief for their dead one. That divide lasted his whole life. How sad. I loved my daughters and my husband. At that moment, I realized that the grief wasn’t just mine. The grief that I had and was showing was everybody’s. It was everybody around me, including my children. I became determined at that moment to fight my way out of the pit. It’s a long, hard battle and it takes a long time, but eventually, I’ve been able to breathe the fresh air and find joy in life from the fight claw kick where you go up and then you come down. I can relate. I was so fortunate that he shared that with me and he shared his pain with me. We need to remember sometimes that people need to hear that they’re not alone. We need to remember that sometimes, people need to hear that they're not alone. Share on XGrief and Mourning
That is so true. There’s a psychologist, J. William Worden, that you talk about who’s provided a framework. You went through all this. Those are the four tasks of mourning that help us understand how people journey through grief. Could you help us learn the difference between grief and mourning and describe the four tasks of mourning? Yes. A year after Eric died, I lost my ability to practice dentistry too. I lost my identity as a dentist too, which was a big deal for me. I had time on my hands, so I became a grief counselor. As I was studying, I found Kubler Ross’ stages of grief, which we all are familiar with. Grief is that grief that you feel right after something happens. Mourning is a process because it’s a process. We don’t think about it as processing, but it’s a process. I loved and I latched on to Worden’s tasks of mourning. I like tasks better than stages. It gives your purpose. You have a direction. With tasks, you have to do it. This is work. You can’t sit there and expect everything’s going to get better. The first task was accepting the loss. I remember how long it took to accept that I was no longer a mother of a son. It took a long time. The second task is to go through the process of grieving. That is the hard part that sometimes takes you years. It took me years. Everyone’s different. Everyone processes it differently. We need to respect the fact that everybody processes it differently. The third step was to accept the new reality. It’s like, “This is my new reality. I no longer have a son. I’m not the mother of three anymore. I’m a mother of two. I have to now re-focus that.” The fourth part and the part that I like because it’s a goal to establish, and I have reached that goal, is you can keep the memory of your child. For me, it is my husband, my son, and my mother. Keep that memory deep within you. Don’t forget your grief is there. You have that tender spot, but be able to look up and live your life without that shroud of grief covering you up and affecting everything you do. Live your life with purpose and joy.I wish I could click my heels and have that happen overnight. It doesn’t. The processing of the grief is the critical part. It takes time. It’s important for people to know because before Carl gave me the calling, I thought I’d be in that pit forever. In fact, I thought, “Why fight the pit? You fight the pit and you’re going to get thrown down in here again. My life is terrible. I want to stay under the bed for the next twenty years.” It allows us to understand, “You can get there, but you have to work for it.” When you’re working for it, you’re also role modeling for other people. You’re role modeling for your daughters. I felt that way about my son. There are no guarantees in their lives either. It’s inspiring for them if they can see you moving through. Would you agree that healing and coming to the other side of it helps them in their lives also? One of the most important legacies, because I talk about legacy, that we can leave is resilience. I talk to my children. Everyone’s different when you talk about death and dying. I got one that says, “Where’s everything? Let’s go. Let’s check this list off and get this.” They’re both attorneys. One of them was like that. The second one was like, “I know, Mom. Thank you, Mom. I don’t even want to think that you’re going to die.” One of the most important legacies that we can leave is resilience. Share on X Everyone’s a little different, but it’s important to talk to them. I’ve talked to all my grandchildren. I talk about their angel pop pop. At Christmas, we get presents from me and Angel Pop Pop. I keep him alive, but I also let them know, “One day, I’m going to be gone. I want you to go and thrive and have a great life.” I know that it works because a few months ago, my little Heidi, who was eight at the time, was at the kitchen table and she looked up at me and said, “Nana?” I said, “Yeah, Heidi?” She goes, “What if what happened to Pop Pop happened to you?” and then she stopped. I said, “Do you mean if I were to die?” She said, “Yeah, if you were to die.” I said, “Go ahead.” She goes, “Nana, if you were to die, can we still go to Disney World?” I said, “Yes. In fact, I’m going to put a clause in my will that puts money aside for the whole family to live joyfully after I’m gone.” I don’t know if I’m going to tell them all that because I don’t want them to look forward to my passing. After I’m gone, I want them to go and, and, and have a good time. I felt it was a success because she understood that I was going to be gone but I wanted her to be happy. I’m going to give her everything I can while I’m still here. They need to know that we’re going to go at some point. I talk about it all the time with my son, my grandchildren, and all of that kind of thing. I want you to also tell everyone that you think there’s more to the four tasks of mourning. There should be seven tasks of mourning from your experience. I’m sure we have a lot of eager readers here saying, “There’s more to do?” Tell us about that. I was writing a book for widows. I work with the widows’ ministry. I tried to divide it into chapters with the tasks because I love those tasks. The first task is vanquishing fear. I have to tell you that I no longer live in fear. It’s a great place to live, but fear tends to take us and hold us when we’re grieving. There’s then conquering loneliness, especially as a widow. I was married to Jim. I can relate. For 44 years, I had somebody there, somebody I knew if I went to the store. He is at the store. Now, I go and nobody knows where I am. I wake up in the morning and there’s nobody there. I started to feel that loneliness that I’ve never felt before being alone. There’s updating your identity as a widow and as a mother. Mine was as a widow not long ago. I’m like, “Who am I now? I was part of a couple. Now, I’m single. What is my identity now? What am I supposed to do?” You have to update that. There’s embracing peace. When you live in fear, your soul is in a very rotten place. It’s physically uncomfortable when you have grief. Embracing that peace or get that peace in your soul, get the peace in your heart, and be able to live with peace, then you can sleep at night. If you don’t have peace, you’re going to be up all night. You’re like, “I have sleep issues anyway because I’m old.” When you’re up at night, that ticker tape keeps going. I had to learn to embrace peace and search for purpose. If you were to ask me what I was going to be doing at this time many years ago, it would be completely different. I was supposed to retire. We built a beautiful lake home for our retirement. Jim and I were going to retire but it’s too far away for me to go by myself and it’s too big for me to go by myself. It was going to be our legacy for the generations of our family. We’re going to have this home and they were going to thank us for this beautiful home. I sold it in 2023 because the kids didn’t want my beautiful home. I had to find a new purpose. I had to change everything I was doing. I’ve changed my purpose. I’m writing. I never would’ve thought I was writing before. Discovering joy is huge. Living in joy is a great place to live. It’s great for the people around you because it’s catching. Like you spread sadness, you also can spread joy. Discovering joy is great. We’re coming close to the holidays. Talk to us about that. We need to unwrap hope for the holidays. We have to re-identify the holidays in our minds. The holidays, for me, were all wrapped up with my husband of 44 years. We would have certain traditions that we would do. We’ve been developing over the last couple of years new traditions. With Christmas presents, it’s Nana and Angel Pop pop. We remember the family but we have different traditions. We’re embracing different traditions and learning to find joy in new things. It’s hard. Holidays are difficult because they bring back so many wonderful memories. I try to focus on creating new wonderful memories. When you get older, they’re going to be memories in a few years. You have an idea about how these pieces of time are so precious. I try to make this piece of time precious and that piece of time precious. Luckily, I have some grandchildren and I have children. Even if you don’t have children or grandchildren, anybody in your life who works at the office, like your friends, makes your life joyful, especially around the holidays with new traditions and new beginnings.
Struggles with Depression
If things come your way and they’re unfamiliar to you, my attitude is to embrace them. They add to your life. Sometimes, it’s good to step out of that box where you’ve been. Speaking about a box, I know you’ve struggled with bouts of depression in your life. I know that you used a combination of medication and psychotherapy to help you. Can you talk about that? What else would you like to share with our audience about managing that? That’s a very challenging mental health issue. It ran through your family because suicide has been a part of that too. I’m in the middle because of my mother and my son. First of all, you have to get rid of the shame and the false guilt. That’s a huge thing. I felt guilty like, “What did I do that I’m in the middle of this? Was my hand the cause? Did I not provide resilience to my son so that he could get over a breakup? What did I do?” With death, many times, you get shame and guilt, so you have to get rid of that. I had been treated before. I had been suicidal when I was younger, right about Eric’s age. It does run in the family. There’s a very strong history. We have to look at that and face it like if you have a history of heart disease and do whatever you can to prevent that. You have to look at that. After Eric died, I sought treatment for depression. I’ve been treated both ways with therapy and also with medication. I have to say that I’m so grateful because it works. I’m on medication. I try to get off it. You think, “I’m feeling better now. I’m a Baby Boomer. I don’t need medication. I can do it on my own now.” I got off it. You go through a little withdrawal period. When I got through all that, I was thinking I was going to be strong and I was going to be tough, and I was going to do it. Finally, my daughter said, “Mom, are you taking your medication?” You feel a little patronized when they do that. My first reaction was, “What are you talking about?” She could tell the difference. I said, “No.” She goes, “Why did you get off it, Mom?” I said, “I felt that I didn’t need it.” She said, “Mom, you need it.” I went to my doctor and she said, “Why did you do that?” I said, “I thought I needed to be off it.” She said, “Was it helping?” I go, “Yes.” She said, “Were there side effects?” I go,” I happen not to have any.” She said, “Are you going to get off your blood pressure medicine too and have a stroke?” I said, “No, because that’s my blood pressure.” He goes, “It’s the same thing. It’s a physical thing. Get back on your medication.” I, at that point, realized I was going to be on it for life. It works. I’m so grateful that we have that because many years ago, people had to push through. Not only are you getting help with the medication, but the psychotherapy helps you to process your life and deal with your life. It’s a win-win. My husband, because he was a strong Norwegian farmer and Baby Boomer guy, was like, “I don’t need anything to help me.” Right before his liver transplant, his heart had to be in good shape because they wouldn’t give you a liver if your heart was bad. Within a year or so after my son died, he needed quadruple bypass surgery and a valve replacement. In a year and a half, his heart fell apart. Much of it was due to the grief that he couldn’t take care of himself and because he wasn’t getting some help. He couldn’t go into that office and spill his feelings, get those emotions out, and talk to somebody. If you’re suffering, please get help. It is not just for you, but for the people around you and for your physical health as well because it can have very damaging effects on your physical health. If you're suffering, get help, not just for yourself but also for the people around you and your physical health, as well, because it can have very damaging effects on your physical well-being. Share on XMemorial Libraries
We have to stop looking at mental illness as a stigma. I want to also ask you. After the death of your son, Eric, you were called to Rwanda. Why Rwanda? You co-found memorial libraries in his name. It sounds like a wonderful legacy, but what’s that about with Rwanda? You’ve had experience with divine intervention where you have had messages sent to you. I have not had any messages sent to me. Things happen to me that are divine intervention but they are not direct messages. About a month or so after Eric’s death, I was at a prayer breakfast and I was sitting next to a woman. She was from Rwanda. She started talking about her family. She was talking about her old family, her two daughters and husband who were killed in the genocide. She was talking about how they had been murdered. She then talked about her new family of orphans from the genocide that she had adopted and her new husband who lost his entire family. She had this joyful look on her face and I thought, “How?” I was still a zombie. I was Zombie Kim. I thought, “How can you even have this?” You could feel the joy emanating from her. A couple of weeks later, I was given the book Left To Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza, which is a fabulous book about her survival in a bathroom with eight other women while the killers were all around them and how she came to New York, worked for the United Nations, and then wrote this book. It was a fabulous book. Here’s another Rwandan story. A couple of months later, I was having breakfast with one of my very dear friends who happened to be with all these other things to be on the board of books for Africa. She had been in Rwanda before the genocide and said, “I always wanted to bring books there. Let’s do a memorial library for Eric.” I said, “That would be fabulous.” We started the process. We used a lot of the money from Eric’s tuition because we couldn’t benefit from the fact that he was dead. That money was like, “That was put aside for tuition. We need to use it for something.” We started out with that and sent 20,000 books to Rwanda. The first ones were seven libraries, including the dental school. I connected with the dental school. I’ve been working with them all these years. I made these wonderful relationships at the dental school. We had a law library, nursery library, high school library, and university library. There were seven of them. I met these widows in Rwanda. This is the most amazing story. When they learned that I was there because I lost my son, I was suddenly part of the pack. They surrounded me with love. It was one of the most amazing feelings I’ve ever felt because I thought, “You guys have lost so much and I’ve lost one child, and yet you are feeling my pain. You are comforting me in my pain. It’s a great comfort because I know what you’ve been through.” The story was that after the genocide, the Tutsi women who were the victims, their families were killed. The Hutu women were in this village. Most of the men were gone because either they were dead or they were in jail. Both considered themselves widows. The Tutsi women got help from a priest at a local church. They said, “He started these weekly meetings,” to try to help them get back on track. The Hutu women said, “We’re widows too. Our husbands are in jail. We need help too.” This wise man said, “I’ll help you as well, but I’m not going to do it separately. You have to come together. I’ll help you together.” They talked about how in the first few meetings, the Hutus were on one side and the Tutsis were on the other. They wouldn’t talk to each other. There was this big line between them. Over time, they began to understand that they had so much more in common than they had between them. Even though the husbands on one side killed the husbands on the other, I can’t even imagine how they could overcome this. Eventually, they formed a cooperative together. We were meeting with this cooperative. They work together and share the profits of what they work on. Many of the Tutsi women have been adopted into the Hutu family. When they have celebrations and so on, they become part of the family. I saw the sharing of families. Can you imagine? How do you forgive a genocide? How do you reconcile with the people that were trying to kill you? How do you do that? That could be applied to other parts of the world also. It’s like us. The US could use a little bit of that. We talk about the divine intervention of some sort, however you see it. They also talked about divine intervention and helping them realize that this was important to love each other and take care of each other. It is the most amazing story because they did it because they didn’t want their children to live through what they lived through. They have created, after 30 years, a safe and productive country. It’s one of the safest places in Africa. Look up Rwanda, for all your readers out there.Award-Winning Book
There’s a theme in there about legacy. These women were also concerned about their legacy for their children and all. That leads me to ask you about your award-winning book, Are You Ready?: How to Build a Legacy to Die For, which is your self-help guide about death and living legacies that advocates for important emotional legacies that can be left. I know there’s so much you can tell us. You’re going to tell us about your book including Your death prepper’s emotional life insurance plan. Let it rip. Tell us all about it. We talked about legacies. The Rwandans left a legacy of peace for the next generation. That’s one example of a big legacy. Your legacy is every interaction you have with every person. You don’t have to win a Nobel Prize to have a legacy. It’s everything you do to show love to your family. The most important legacy you could ever leave is love. My mother left a legacy of love in six short years that lasted my lifetime, and I’m so grateful for that legacy. I’m trying to pass that legacy of love onto my children, grandchildren, and hopefully everybody that I meet. We need to get that most important one, but there are many legacies. Education, peace, and faith, all these things could be your legacy. There are thousands of legacies. The first part of the book talks about normal people with very unusual legacies and some amazing people. The second part of the book talks about death and dying because we don’t like to talk about death and dying. All of us, probably on your show, have a number of views of what’s going to happen to us after we go, depending on what our religious beliefs and our faiths are. I talk about that. I’m like, “These are the things people believe. We need to respect each other for what our beliefs are.” Is death a grim or a gentle reaper? I am not afraid of death. You’ve mentioned you were not either. I feel it’s a very gentle reaper. Maybe the circumstances might be grim. A car accident is a difficult thing, but the actual death process is a gentle thing. Especially if you know that you’re going to go on. That leads into our world. What are you doing with that legacy until you get there? We’re trying to leave as much legacy as we possibly can. We live in a culture where it almost sounds like if you eat the right foods and exercise, you’re going to live forever. You’re not. We’re going to all go. The longer you live, the more legacy you can live. I don’t want to go now. If I go now, I’m ready to go, but I want to live a long time for my grandchildren because I want to leave a legacy to them. That legacy portion is really important. The last part of the book is after my husband died, I went, “What do I do now? I’m in this place between menopause and death. What kind of life is this? I have a new hip. The words stick in my brain. I’m going through the aging process.” I thought, “What do I do now? Where’s the instruction guide for how to do this?” I couldn’t find one. One of the things that I did see is that people who didn’t get everything prepared before they went many times left a legacy of conflict in their family. Every one of us at a certain age knows of people whose parents died and they didn’t have their will put together, so then the family got into big fights with each other and nobody talked to each other. When you look at happiness, so many studies show that happiness is the best predictor of strong relationships. The best predictor of happiness is strong relationships. Share on X We all want to leave a legacy of strong relationships to our children and our grandchildren. One of the best ways you can do that is to get your will prepared and get your healthcare directive so they know what to do when you die. They’re not going to argue that you should have died in a hospital when you did hospice or they should have done hospice when you did hospital. You make that decision so nobody else has a say in it. Leave your legacies. Get all your stuff together and your passwords. I got this stuff in order because I had to because I wrote the book. I had some good motivation. I got mine together. I have all in a binder and page protectors my social security card, the titles to my car, and my estate. Everything they’re going to need to process is in one three-ring binder. My husband’s filing cabinets were plastic bags that looked like garbage bags. Some of us do not have good filing systems. We’re looking through all this stuff to try to figure out where everything is. I also recommend cleaning up your mess so there’s not much mess left. Get rid of your stuff that they don’t want. When I die, my kids will open up this legacy binder and everything they need is going to be in there. If it’s not in there, there are directions on where to find it. My daughter has my will in her safe so that they know where that is. My dream is they’re going to look through it and go, “Mom loved us so much. She got this ready for us because she knew this was going to be hard.” In case they don’t get it, because sometimes, they don’t get it, you have legacy love letters in there. The very first most important and most famous love letter was written by St. Valentine to be delivered after he died. Look at the impact that made. Let’s write letters. Let’s write Valentine’s to our families in that legacy binder. In case they don’t realize how much you love them because you put the legacy binder together, you have a document talking about how much you love them and how proud you are of them. For my mother’s legacy, before she took her life, she left one little card that said, “All my love always. Mom.” It had $5 in it. That was 1/3 of her net worth. She had $15 when she died. That card is so precious to me. I have legacy love letters, apology letters, and reconciliation letter templates written in my book. You can fill in the blank. Get it done. Even a really beautiful card for Valentine, putting it in there with a little note will suffice. Personal letters that say a little bit more are even better, but whatever you can put in there is important. You even talk about leaving a legacy video. People can do that also, right? Yes. Your last guest on this show talked about how you could do it professionally. Someone else will do it for you. I am a little challenged technologically. Many of us Baby Boomers are. There are companies that can do this for you. Your last guest was one of those people. Nancy Leve. She could do it for you. I would recommend doing that. Before you do that, because you never know and you might get hit by a truck when you walk outside, even taking your phone for five minutes, leaving a quick little note or a little bit of information, and then sending it out so everybody has it is helpful. You can write legacy books online. There are all kinds of legacy books. You can write with pictures online on your computer or write the history of your family. I’m going to call Nancy and get one of those legacy videos because then, it will be impressive to the kids. They’ll feel like grandma has a little bit more technologically sound experiences in her background.New Online Course Development
They even have the memory of your voice when you leave the video. They have you, your voice, and how you’re telling them these things. It’s great. You also have a new online course that you’re developing to help people learn to live with their legacy in mind. Would you like to tell us anything about that new course that you’re creating? Yes. We all know we should do it. We know we need to get this done but we don’t because, first of all, we think we’re going to live for longer. We think we have time. Death comes unexpectedly. We don’t know. It’s coming out on November 1st, 2024. I have a course on this whole subject. I have a book, and then I have a course. The course is a step-by-step preparation to get ready. At the end of the course, you will have a binder put together with all of your important papers that you can lock away, put in a special place, and then get digital backup because you never know. It’s always nice to get a backup once you put this together. It can be done very quickly in about four weeks. You can get all this done and have it in your binder. I put together an online course for that because people need a little help. I agree. If you’re on your own and you’re looking at this as an endeavor, it can be very discouraging. To take a course like that and you’re guided makes it much easier. I recommend that groups even do it. I also have a book club. Before I wrote my book, I brought this up to the book club and said, “Let’s all get ready.” In fact, on the cover of my book, I have my book club members holding up their legacy folder at that time to say, “I did it.” When you could do it as a group, it’s nice to have some accountability. The course will allow you to do it by yourself as a couple or in a group. When you’re done with the course, you have your binder and you go on, live your life, and not worry about it, except you do have to update it yearly. I would recommend you go back and make sure that you update it. Sometimes, things change in there. Are you leaving information about a special offer for our audience? Yes. You can have a free copy of the four tasks to get that family discussion done. Sometimes, people are a little afraid to have that discussion, but your family needs to have a discussion about what’s going to happen after you die. It’s important to have everything done in writing and have that legacy binder, but it’s also important to talk about it before you go so that they understand what’s going to happen. One of the biggest causes of conflict is surprise. You want to make it so they’re not surprised, especially if there’s something unusual. If you have a blended family, for instance, that’s always a little more complicated. Maybe you have a child that might need some extra attention. Maybe there’s a disability involved. If somebody has helped you for the last few years and has been your nursing care, and you want to leave a little more to that person, you can express it before you die, and then they know what to expect.Healing and Finding Joy
That’s beautiful. Why do you say that healing is not a passive event? Why is it important for each of us to heal? Living in that grief pit is a terrible place to live. You are seething with sorrow and all hope is destroyed. Every task is overwhelming. When you’re in that grief pit, you can’t get anything done. It’s like you’re suffocating. It’s an awful place to live. In my mind, I would’ve stayed there if I hadn’t been shaken out by that conversation with my husband’s cousin. I want to recommend to everyone that you have to have courage, fight, kick, and claw your way out of that grief pit. Have courage. Fear is down there in that pit. You have fear everywhere. Getting away from fear and moving on to joy is a wonderful transition. It’s a much better place to live.That is so true. Healing takes a lot of courage. When you face it and when you grow through it, it’s beautiful. You drop so much pain and suffering from you. What is the Kim Harms tip for finding joy in life? It is grabbing onto something beyond you if you have faith. I have faith. You have faith. It is grabbing onto the fact that this life is going to be extended and what you’re doing is going to be extended. Even if you’re someone who doesn’t believe there’s life after death, because a certain percentage of people don’t, living with your legacy in mind where you’re looking at, “What legacy am I going to leave? What am I leaving behind?” you’re helping people when you’re doing that. What I discovered is when you do that and you’re helping other people, you get the joy right back. The endorphins are going crazy inside of you as you’re helping out somebody else. The more you help other people, the more joy you feel and the more legacy you leave. If you feel that this life is part of a big eternal life, that is helpful. Even if you don’t, it’s still important to do that because you become more joyful while you’re here. The more you help other people, the more joy you feel and the more legacy you leave. Share on X What better thing to leave to your loved ones than joy? I agree with you that we are never the same or normal after a catastrophic loss. We’ve changed. We don’t get over it. We get through it and we move forward. I want to thank you for the important work you’re doing that is helping people overcome grief and challenges in their lives so that they can leave a legacy of joy and resilience to the next generation. I thank you from my heart for this touching, inspiring, and wisdom-filled interview on the show. As I like to say, to be continued. Thank you so much. Many blessings. Thank you. This has been fabulous. Thank you.
Guest’s Links
- Kimberly Harms’s Website
- Connect with Kimberly Harms on Facebook
- Kimberly Harms’s Book: Are You Ready?: How to Build A Legacy to Die For
- Left To Tell
- Minnesota Dental Association
- American Dental Association
Host’s Links
About Kimberly Harms
Dr. Kimberly 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, a grief counselor, a death doula, a civil mediator, a clinical dentist with her late husband Jim in Farmington MN, a school board Chair, President of an international women’s organization, the first woman President of the Minnesota Dental Association, a National Spokesperson for the American Dental Association (21 years), an award-winning, best selling author and international speaker on the topics of grief, conflict and legacy planning.
She 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.“You’re shining your light into the world in many ways and that’s such a gift!”
