November 11, 2024 • 29 mins
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, and many other prominent positions. She is an award-winning, best-selling author of the book, “Are You Ready?: How to Build a Legacy to Die For” as well as being an 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.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
You are listening to Boomers Today with your host, Frank Sampson.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome to Boomers Today. I'm your host, Frank Sampson. Of course,
each week I'm being important and.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Very useful information on issues they say, baby boomers, their
parents and other loved ones. And as I do on
each show, I thank all of you, and I thank
all of you because our listeners keep growing.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
They're growing each and every day, and it's because of
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(00:59):
get our podcast. So we're thrilled and thank you for
doing that. But I do know why you are sharing
and more and more. We're getting more and more listeners
every day because we have wonderful guests, and certainly today
is not going to be any different. We have a
great guest. Her name is doctor Kimberly Harms, who has
(01:21):
been around the block in life. She has served as
a commission officer in the United States Public Health Service,
a dental school professor, a grief counselor death doula, a
civil mediator, and many other prominent positions. She is an
award winning best selling author of the book Are You
Ready How to Build a Legacy to Die For? As
(01:42):
well as being an international speaker on the topics of grief,
conflict and legacy planning. She has also suffered many personal losses,
including the death 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, Kim,
(02:08):
if I may call you, Kim, thank you so much
for joining us on on Boomers today. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Well, thank you so much Frank for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, and I you know, first, I just want to
tell you how sorry I am on everything that you've
been through. But you know, considering everything that you've been
through personally and what you've learned professionally in your various fields,
talk to us why you feel having a comprehensive legacy
(02:40):
planning is so important. I know that that's probably you
could take a half hour, I'm sure answering that, but goodness,
give us an overview, though.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
I'll give you this short story version. Well, you know what,
my husband passed away four years ago, and I'm sixty
eight now, and and I reset time in my life.
We get kind of trained to do all these you know,
we go to school, we get our degree, we go
to work, then we work towards retirement, and then then
we don't always plan what's going to happen. Then and
my husband and my husband died. I realized that I
(03:14):
was in this crazy period between menopause on one side
and death on the other. And I just had to
figure out, Okay, so what do I do with my
life now? What do I do with my I've been
taking care of my husband for a long time, you know,
we lost our son, which was a terrible thing, and
lost my mother, and I just had to figure out,
what do I do now? What do I do to
graduate well? How do I how do I manage this
(03:36):
part of my life and do it well. I have
two surviving daughters, I've got six grandchildren, and I wanted
to make sure I graduated from life in good standing.
So I started thinking, okay, now what do we have
to do? And we kind of have to prepare for
that time when we're going to die, because we're all
going to die, and I'm not planning on dying anytime soon,
(03:58):
but you never know, you know, it could happen. And
so I just started researching and researching what to do
to leave my children in a good emotional way, to
keep them resilient. Because my son died forty five minutes
after breakup with a girlfriend. He was this brilliant kid
(04:18):
at Columbia, had the whole world at his fingertips. He
was just doing so well, and a girlfriend broke up
with him and forty five minutes later he was gone.
So resilience is something to me that's very important for
my children and my grandchildren. They lost their pop pop,
they lost their their father, and I wanted to make
sure when I died, which is hopefully will happen before
(04:40):
anybody else want, I don't want that sequence to be
out of line. Again, I've been there. I want to
make sure that they're in good shape. So that means
getting my affairs in order, my financial affairs an order,
and all of that stuff, but also leaving them emotionally sound.
And I was researching that and that's why I wrote
the book. It's got a whole whole set of lists,
(05:00):
a whole list of things to do to help our
children become emotionally resilient after we die.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And I'm sure, aside from your own personal situation, which is,
you know, tragic, but I'm sure you've talked to a
lot of people and you know, I'm just we're of
similar age, and you know, I certainly am a proponent
of what you're saying, and I certainly talk to friends
(05:29):
and family that they need to plan. I'm in the
long term care business, and I always say, there's one
hundred percent chance you're gonna die, but there's a very
high change. The longer you live, you're gonna need long
term care, so you need to plan for that. But
certainly dying is one hundred percent. So but don't you
find and people that you've met and talked with, people
(05:52):
just have a tough time doing that, and they don't
want to talk about it, they don't want to think
about it. Do you think that still an issue? And
how do you get people to, you know, just to
move forward and plan properly.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Absolutely, it's an issue. We are a death denying culture.
We kind of feel sometimes that maybe we just eat
right and exercise and do all those things, we're going
to just live on forever. But of course we know
we're not going to live forever, but we kind of
we don't really come to terms with that. And yet
what happens is the result of that is that over
(06:32):
half of Americans are involved in some sort of conflict
around the death of a loved one. And we all
know families at this at our age, we all know
families who have suffered dramatically, even family relationships that are
torn apart because their parents didn't plan well. They didn't
they didn't leave them in a good spot because they
(06:54):
just didn't do any of their planning. Then much of
it is what happens at the end of life. Are
you going to go into hospice? So are you going
to go into the hospital and say you need a
health care directive? It was my husband gave me that
wonderful gift. He did not want to die in a hospital,
and he wrote out a health care directive and made
it very clear you wanted to die at home. So
I had that direction. And it really helps to plan,
(07:17):
just like anything that we plan for graduation from college,
you know, we plan for our business as we plan
what we're going to be doing, but we don't plan
for death. We all know we should plan for death,
but we procrastinate. And that's why I wrote the book.
I want to help people understand the need to leave
your legacy now, because everything you do right now is
a legacy. I'm processing moving down to Kansas City so
(07:38):
I can leave just as much legacy to my three
grandchildren down there as I'm leaving to the three grandchildren
up here, so I can go back and forth. We
need to do that and live well. But we also
need to leave our children with the soft landing after
we go. We need to prepare them for our death.
We need to talk about our death, and we need
to leave them with that soft landing. So when we die.
When I die, my kids have a I have a
(08:00):
legacy binder, three ring binder. Everything they're gonna need, all
the papers, are going to need, all the title to
my car, my social Security number of my birth certificate,
everything they could possibly need to manage my estate. Plus
I leave a little Valentine's Little Love Letters. You know,
the first Valentine was delivered after the death of Saint Valentine.
(08:21):
It was a It was a legacy letter written by
Saint Valentine and look at the impact that made. So
leave a Valentine to your loved ones so that as
they're going through your stuff they have a letter from
you that says, oh, I love you so much. First
of all, it reinforces the fact that you knew you
were going to die, This was something that was expected.
It just helps them to understand that. And then it
(08:41):
also helps them to understand how much you love them
and that you want them to go on and have
a good life and not not be drowning in guilt
and sorrow. I mean they're gonna they're gonna grieve a
little bit. You want them to grieve in a healthy manner,
but grieve in a healthy manner and move on with
their lives.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Said, so, you said the world I was going to
bring up just and you know, just a few minutes ago,
and that was the word procrastinate, all right, So maybe
you could address that at any thoughts you have and
how people could kind of beat procrastination and get started
(09:17):
with the legacy planning.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
I recommend you know, my book is a step by
step process, so that you can just go through the
book into the step by step process, and I'm developed
I just developed an online course to kind of help
you do that step by step by step by step,
but I really recommend doing it with other people to
help you hold you accountable. If you're a couple, you know,
plan a meeting every every Monday night until you get
(09:42):
it done. The reality is, you know, once you get
your will and your trust, whatever you're going to do
for that one, you get that done. Getting all these
other things together doesn't take as much time as you think,
but it makes such a difference for the people that
you leave behind because they know my husband, my husband
had his filing cabinet plastic bags that were in the
(10:05):
closet and so you know, I had to go through
all of those to get all the papers out. So
it's so hard for families to kind of work through
all this stuff. So just putting them in one place
is so critically important. And if you have some type
of the system down where you have other people that
you're working with, your Bible study or book club, another
group that you meet, the morning coffee group that you
(10:27):
meet with, do it together with another with another person
that helps hold you accountable.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah. I was going to say, what if some reasons
I realize I have to do it. I need to
do it. I just can't. I just maybe they're not
that organized of a person or whatever the case I be.
So any So, who would you suggest you turn to
to help?
Speaker 4 (10:50):
Well, I'm I'm I'm actually developing a course, an online
course that they can take that I'm also there to
help them so you know, I can meet with them
and keep them in ale and so on. That's what
I've just kind of developed for me to do. But
if you've got if you've got.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Some with that, I said, that's great, and that's wonderful.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Yeah he did that because I feel there's a need,
there's a need for that. But also if there's there
are people around you, because you know, most of us
we hang out, you know, I go to my church,
I kind of hang out with a group of baby
boomers and we all need to do this. So if
you can hang out with with the like set of people,
and really it's not just limited to baby boomers. Because
(11:30):
if you if you get a life insurance plan on
your family, you should have this all done because you're
admitting you're gonna die, right, so if you have a
life insurance, get this emotional life insurance plan, done as well,
where you have everything together in one place so that
your family's not gonna be arguing with each other and
fighting it with each other. You know, many times it's
(11:50):
he should have died in the hospital, No, he should
have died in hospice, and it will argue over those things.
So that's why you need your healthcare directive, or you know,
they might be arguing over who it's grandma's, you know,
cake plan. You know, all those things need to be
taken care of before you die. They need to know
how to take care of this before you die and
not be surprised at the end. It really is a
disservice to our children if we don't plan for what
(12:13):
is the inevitable. I mean, it's not like we're going
to escape it. It's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
So if there were let's say your top three things,
if if if you're talking to somebody who just was
a procrastinator, and you could convince them just constant, you know,
get these top three things done. First. Let's take it
a step at a time. What would be your most
important things to do well?
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Your healthcare directive, your will, your will, absolutely your will,
and then you know there are a number of the
other things kind of all fall into one category, and
that is kind of taking care of the emotional life
insurance plan, which I believe is like a letter of intense.
For instance, some families are blended, and that might be complicated.
(12:59):
If you have a blended they might get complicated how
you divide things up. So if you divide things up
in a way that is complicated, it's really helpful to
write a letter of intent where you're writing to your family,
I'm dividing my estate up in a certain way because
this happened, or that happened, or Mary Lou took care
(13:19):
of me for the last two years, and I want
to give her a little bit more because of the
work that you did. Or maybe there's a member of
the family that might need long term care. I'm going
to give more for that. It's important that they understand
the reason behind what you're doing and that you have
written that down or told them that. And I like
(13:41):
writing down much better because it's amazing people that are
told things don't always remember them the same way. So
I recommend having a family meeting where you discuss all
this stuff and you record it again, because people don't
remember things the same way, and so you need to
document these things so that when they're in that grief period,
you're not going to complicate hate it by the uncertainty
(14:02):
or that follows if you don't have everything written down
and they aren't. They aren't assured of what's going to happen.
They're trying to figure it out themselves, and that can
lead the conflict among family members, which is not the
legacy you want to leave. By one of the biggest
legacies I want to leave, I've got these two daughters
that just love each other and take care of each other,
and I want to keep it that way when I'm
gone by making sure that everything goes smoothly. And they
(14:25):
they're both attorneys, and they both read my will, and
they both know exactly where everything is, and they know
where my binder is, and so everything's gonna be all
set for them.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
So how do they have the opposite situation that the
person that needs to kind of get get their act together.
They do a pretty good job. They're getting their act together,
but now they want to communicate it to their loved ones,
and your case, like your daughters, their attorneys, they get it,
but some people, some might say, Mom, you're going to
be fine. You're talking foolish. I don't want to hear
(14:55):
all this stuff. How do you react to that?
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Well, that happens quite a It happened even my family.
I've got one daughter that will you know, I can
talk to her about anything and she's all said, And
I've got another one that's like, oh, she kind of cringes.
So what I did is I just said, okay, it's
it's a family holiday. It might be Mother's Day, might
be Thanksgiving, might be some time when we're together. The
gift that I would like for you to give to
(15:19):
me is to sit down with me and let's talk
about all this. So I kind of frame it as
a future planning meeting. And it is a little more
uncomfortable for one person, one of my children, than the other.
But it's so important that I talk that I've talked
to them, and I put most of the things I
talk about in writing, and that way they understand it.
And if you find that you can't, if they don't
(15:40):
want to sit down and talk, then write them a letter.
But put it down in writing. That might be sometimes
a little more comforting. If they read a letter, then
actually sit down and talk, but put it down so
that they understand where everything is, because you don't want
them to start trying to manage all this uncertainty when
they're also grieving.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, that's a great, great suggestion. So Kim, we're going
to take a real quick break. I promise just to
recognize our sponsor and when we come back, we'll talk.
We'll continue the conversation and let you talk a little
bit about your book as well. So do you know
anyone who may be concerned about an older driver well
(16:24):
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(16:46):
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(17:06):
seat to the passenger seat. So to learn more, go
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eight seven seven nine zero seven eight eight four to
one to connect with a senior care authority advisor in
your area. We are back with kim Harmes. Doctor Kimberly
(17:27):
Harms is the author of Are You Ready? How to
Build a Legacy to Die For? So on that subject.
Tell us a little bit more about the book. You know,
I think I know the catalysts for you writing the book,
but go ahead and share that as well, and how
(17:49):
people could get it and anything else you would like
to share.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Well, I wrote the book to help us just get
through this last quarter and live with purpose. The legacy
part is living with purpose, and you know we have
as we get older, our identity changes. We have to
you know, with a mother taking care of children, then
they grow up and now I'm a grandmother, and you know,
do what do I need to do to be useful
in this stage? And how do I proceed to be
(18:14):
to have purpose in my life and have identity in
my life? So the first part of the book, the
first third, is all about building a legacy, building an
important legacy, and of course the most important legacy is
love you just they need to know. Our kids and
our grandkids need to know we love them and we're
proud of them. And there are many other legacies you
can pass on, like hard work, education, faith, all those
(18:35):
things or legacies. Theres thousands of legacies you can pass on,
but living your life with purpose and having that purpose
extend beyond your life because you're passing it on to
the next generation. The second part of the book deals
with death and dying. I became a death dueler during
this time because I wanted to learn more about death
and dying and it explains different beliefs that different people
(18:55):
have about death and dying, and I want the purpose
of that was so that people would not be afraid
of death. We shouldn't be afraid of death. It's going
to happen, let's face it. The last part of it
is a step by step by step instruction on everything
you need to know before you go, all the things
you need to address, and all the things that you
need to do. And it's meant to build that legacy
(19:17):
binder so that you have everything in that one place,
so that your children aren't having to rummage through all
your things out and find all your papers and wonder
what's going to happen after you die. It's all taken
care of. Everything's going to be easy for them after
they go. With the inclusion of legacy letters that maybe
explain some of your background, legacy love letters and explain
(19:38):
how how much you love your children, Valentine for your children.
And then also maybe I'd like people to consider taking
care of their emotional baggage before they go apologizing, if
you need to putting your relationships with people above your ego,
which is a hard thing for us to do that.
There's so many studies out there that know that the
(20:00):
most important predictor of happiness is your relationships with other people,
and that becomes so important, especially as we get older.
So make sure those relationships are good. So I have
templates to write an apology letter, I have templates to
write a legacy letter, templates to write a reconciliation letter,
and so those are all in there so you can
just step everything you need to know. And then I
(20:23):
also have if you go to my website dot reallyharms
dot com, you can you can get a four step
free four step guide. You can just download a free
four step guide to having that family discussion. So what
do you do to have a family, how do you
plan it, what do you say? You know, you make
sure you record it. All of those things are in
that four step guide. And then also there's a there's
(20:45):
a you can just put a click, click the little
button and you can get the link to my book
Are you ready? How to Build a Legacy to Die For?
So that's all on my website, doctor Kimberlyharms dot com.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Right, wonderful, wonderful. So the it can you So you
can go to the website or on Amazon.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Yeah, you go the way. The book is available on Amazon,
Barnes and Noble, most places where you can buy books online.
It's available in all those places. And so it's a
it's an easy one to get. But if you go
to my website, you just click the click the link
and it goes right to that the Amazon link. Yeah,
it's right there on the website.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
So if I may, I know this is probably you know,
I mean, I know you've written about it, talked about it,
but it's got to be still difficult to discuss. But
I just like to you know, there's a lot of
people I'm sure that have suffered from a family member
with suicide. Unfortunately, it's all too commonplace today, unfortunately, So
(21:56):
maybe you could just share your thoughts, uh. I mean,
you've you know, you've come from a dark place, but
it seems like you getting through it are gone, you know,
getting through it a lot better. I'm sure you never
get over it, but maybe finding some sort of purpose,
you know, after suicide, maybe you could just share your
(22:19):
thoughts to help those that are going through it or
have gone through it.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Right well, absolutely, I would love to just give everyone
out there who is going through either thoughts of suicide
or surviving suicide, or someone of their family is committed suicide.
I just want to just give you a big hug,
because it's a horrible place to be any of those places.
It's a horrible place to be. But there is a
(22:44):
light at the end of the tunnel, and I think
that's one thing everyone needs to know that how bad
it might seem now, is not going to be that
way in the future. And I think people just need
to have that hope. I had something when my mother died.
I was seventeen years old. I was just devastated. I
can't you know, you can't even you can't even describe
the pain when this happens, because it's not only the
(23:06):
death of your mother, but the death of your mother
by suicide complicates everything. It's a very complicated form of grief.
And then when my son passed away, he was on
top of the world. Uh, he was, you know, at Columbia,
he was elected to student government. He had just gotten
he came home for Christmas and he had made the
Dean's list in engineering. But he was also playing jazz
(23:26):
piano in the jazz piano program. And that's why he
went to Columbia because he could study engineering and play
jazz piano in New York City. I mean, he was
on top of the world, elected as student government, when
the plays at Barnard.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Just.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
Having a ball. Got home, was so happy, and we
were so happy for him, as you you know, with children,
you're you're you're almost just it's like you're you're you
can tell how when they're when they're really doing well,
and he was really doing well and.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Only as happy as a child.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
Right, absolutely, absolutely, so we were so happy at Christmas
because all of our kids are doing well. And he
went back to school and two weeks later, his girlfriend
broke up with him. In forty five minutes after that,
he was gone, that brilliant mind that was only nineteen
years old, not fully developed, who was a very impulsive
(24:14):
person because jazz piano. The reason he was a good
jazz pianist is he was impulsive, and he was kind
of a Robin Williams like character. He was very, very funny,
very joyful. And then he was gone, and so we
were just absolutely our our minds were just completely destroyed.
We were shattered. We couldn't think. You can't eat, you
can't you know, you don't know what to say. You're
(24:35):
the worst nightmare you could ever have is actually your reality.
And it's just a horrible place, as anyone who's been
there knows, it's horrible. I had something happened to me
about a couple of months after Eric died. That was
a gift. Didn't know it at the time, but it
was a gift. And I was coming out of my office.
I mean, we were Denis, my husband. You are both dentists,
(24:57):
and when you're a dentist, or if you're in the healthcare
professions and you have patients that you see a lot
in Eric was very well known in our small town.
People just love that guy. And so throughout the day,
twenty or thirty times we would, you know, see someone
that we hadn't seen before and they would express their condolences,
and so we would kind of just go through this
(25:17):
time and time, which is which is hard. And I
was coming and you're in that zombie stage. Anyone knows
who's been through catastrophic gloss knows a zombie stage where
you're kind of dead on the inside and you're just
trying to smile on the outside, and you know, engage
in discussion, but you can hardly, you know, hardly move.
And I was coming out of my office and my
husband was there and he was having a very deep
(25:38):
discussion with his cousin, and all of a sudden, the
cousin came over to me wagging his finger in my face,
right in my face, and which surprised me because I'm
a grieving mother. People weren't doing that to me, you know,
they were being kind, but he was wagging his finger.
He was very angry, and he said, don't you ever
let your remaining chill and feel that they are not enough.
(26:03):
Don't you do that to them? And it struck me
like a bolt of lightning when he said that, because
he had lost his brother at about the same age,
and he felt that he lost his parents at the
same time. He felt that his parents could not function
well enough to adjust to their living children, the help
(26:27):
of their living children, to be a parent to their
living children, because they were so consumed with grief over
their dead one. And I was headed to the same place.
I was at the bottom of that grief pit. I
could just barely suck through some air because of all
the mud. I mean, I was down there, and I
was just thinking, why even try to get up, because
(26:48):
I'll just get kicked down again. I mean, I was
getting ready to make that my permanent home. And I
realized I wasn't going to do that to my children
and to my husband. My husband had just had a
liver transplant. He had liver cancer and had a liver transplant,
was recovering from that, so my husband was compromised. My children,
they were in one was in law school, one was
(27:09):
out of law school, and and they were suffering too.
And I realized that I had to fight and kick
and scream and claw my way out of that grief pit.
I had to fight, and you got to fight your
way out of it. It doesn't come naturally when you're
when you're down deep in that pit, it doesn't happen naturally.
(27:30):
You gotta fight it, and you got to work to
get out. And I did, and it took a long time.
It's not easy escaping that pit. But I will tell
you after, you know, a few years, maybe five years,
I was able to breathe fresh air again. I was
able to look at the world without that trout, because
you have that trout over you when you're in that
(27:51):
grief pit. And that has been such a gift, not
only to me because it's it's a wonderful place to
live out of that pit, but it's been a gift
to everybody around me. And I now have my two daughters,
got married, I have six grandchildren, and I'm able to
be there, excuse me, full time in the present for
(28:13):
those grandkids. And I love them so much. You know,
you just can't even express how much you love your
little grand kids. That's well, but I can be there
love them. But I wouldn't be there in this way
had I allowed grief to take over my life and
it and it'll do that if you let it so, my, my.
What I'd like to encourage everyone is that if you're
(28:34):
in that grief pit, fight, fight, fight, do everything you
can to get out. You're going to go up and
you're gonna wave, is going to hitch, and you're going
to fall back down in it again. But it is
worth the battle to get out, and everyone manages it differently.
There's no set time limit, but just keep fighting.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Thank you for that, doctor, Kimberly Hiram check it out.
Are you ready how to build a legacy to die for?
Thank you for joining us on Boomers Today. Kim, thank you,
thank you. I want to thank everybody for joining us.
Please be safe, talk to everybody next show.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
You've been listening to Boomers Today with Frank Sampson. To
learn more about today's show, visit Boomerstodayradio dot com and
join us next time for another edition of Boomers Today.
You are listening to Boomers Today with your host, Frank Sampson.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome to Boomers Today. I'm your host, Frank Sampson. Of course,
each week I'm being important and.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Very useful information on issues they say, baby boomers, their
parents and other loved ones. And as I do on
each show, I thank all of you, and I thank
all of you because our listeners keep growing.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
They're growing each and every day, and it's because of
you sharing many of our podcasts, individual shows, our entire
series of shows with friends and family. Many of you
listen on Apple Podcasts, Spreakers, Stitcher. Oh you know we're
on Amazon Music. You could even talk to Alex and
(00:59):
get our podcast. So we're thrilled and thank you for
doing that. But I do know why you are sharing
and more and more. We're getting more and more listeners
every day because we have wonderful guests, and certainly today
is not going to be any different. We have a
great guest. Her name is doctor Kimberly Harms, who has
(01:21):
been around the block in life. She has served as
a commission officer in the United States Public Health Service,
a dental school professor, a grief counselor death doula, a
civil mediator, and many other prominent positions. She is an
award winning best selling author of the book Are You
Ready How to Build a Legacy to Die For? As
(01:42):
well as being an international speaker on the topics of grief,
conflict and legacy planning. She has also suffered many personal losses,
including the death 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, Kim,
(02:08):
if I may call you, Kim, thank you so much
for joining us on on Boomers today. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Well, thank you so much Frank for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, and I you know, first, I just want to
tell you how sorry I am on everything that you've
been through. But you know, considering everything that you've been
through personally and what you've learned professionally in your various fields,
talk to us why you feel having a comprehensive legacy
(02:40):
planning is so important. I know that that's probably you
could take a half hour, I'm sure answering that, but goodness,
give us an overview, though.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
I'll give you this short story version. Well, you know what,
my husband passed away four years ago, and I'm sixty
eight now, and and I reset time in my life.
We get kind of trained to do all these you know,
we go to school, we get our degree, we go
to work, then we work towards retirement, and then then
we don't always plan what's going to happen. Then and
my husband and my husband died. I realized that I
(03:14):
was in this crazy period between menopause on one side
and death on the other. And I just had to
figure out, Okay, so what do I do with my
life now? What do I do with my I've been
taking care of my husband for a long time, you know,
we lost our son, which was a terrible thing, and
lost my mother, and I just had to figure out,
what do I do now? What do I do to
graduate well? How do I how do I manage this
(03:36):
part of my life and do it well. I have
two surviving daughters, I've got six grandchildren, and I wanted
to make sure I graduated from life in good standing.
So I started thinking, okay, now what do we have
to do? And we kind of have to prepare for
that time when we're going to die, because we're all
going to die, and I'm not planning on dying anytime soon,
(03:58):
but you never know, you know, it could happen. And
so I just started researching and researching what to do
to leave my children in a good emotional way, to
keep them resilient. Because my son died forty five minutes
after breakup with a girlfriend. He was this brilliant kid
(04:18):
at Columbia, had the whole world at his fingertips. He
was just doing so well, and a girlfriend broke up
with him and forty five minutes later he was gone.
So resilience is something to me that's very important for
my children and my grandchildren. They lost their pop pop,
they lost their their father, and I wanted to make
sure when I died, which is hopefully will happen before
(04:40):
anybody else want, I don't want that sequence to be
out of line. Again, I've been there. I want to
make sure that they're in good shape. So that means
getting my affairs in order, my financial affairs an order,
and all of that stuff, but also leaving them emotionally sound.
And I was researching that and that's why I wrote
the book. It's got a whole whole set of lists,
(05:00):
a whole list of things to do to help our
children become emotionally resilient after we die.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And I'm sure, aside from your own personal situation, which is,
you know, tragic, but I'm sure you've talked to a
lot of people and you know, I'm just we're of
similar age, and you know, I certainly am a proponent
of what you're saying, and I certainly talk to friends
(05:29):
and family that they need to plan. I'm in the
long term care business, and I always say, there's one
hundred percent chance you're gonna die, but there's a very
high change. The longer you live, you're gonna need long
term care, so you need to plan for that. But
certainly dying is one hundred percent. So but don't you
find and people that you've met and talked with, people
(05:52):
just have a tough time doing that, and they don't
want to talk about it, they don't want to think
about it. Do you think that still an issue? And
how do you get people to, you know, just to
move forward and plan properly.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Absolutely, it's an issue. We are a death denying culture.
We kind of feel sometimes that maybe we just eat
right and exercise and do all those things, we're going
to just live on forever. But of course we know
we're not going to live forever, but we kind of
we don't really come to terms with that. And yet
what happens is the result of that is that over
(06:32):
half of Americans are involved in some sort of conflict
around the death of a loved one. And we all
know families at this at our age, we all know
families who have suffered dramatically, even family relationships that are
torn apart because their parents didn't plan well. They didn't
they didn't leave them in a good spot because they
(06:54):
just didn't do any of their planning. Then much of
it is what happens at the end of life. Are
you going to go into hospice? So are you going
to go into the hospital and say you need a
health care directive? It was my husband gave me that
wonderful gift. He did not want to die in a hospital,
and he wrote out a health care directive and made
it very clear you wanted to die at home. So
I had that direction. And it really helps to plan,
(07:17):
just like anything that we plan for graduation from college,
you know, we plan for our business as we plan
what we're going to be doing, but we don't plan
for death. We all know we should plan for death,
but we procrastinate. And that's why I wrote the book.
I want to help people understand the need to leave
your legacy now, because everything you do right now is
a legacy. I'm processing moving down to Kansas City so
(07:38):
I can leave just as much legacy to my three
grandchildren down there as I'm leaving to the three grandchildren
up here, so I can go back and forth. We
need to do that and live well. But we also
need to leave our children with the soft landing after
we go. We need to prepare them for our death.
We need to talk about our death, and we need
to leave them with that soft landing. So when we die.
When I die, my kids have a I have a
(08:00):
legacy binder, three ring binder. Everything they're gonna need, all
the papers, are going to need, all the title to
my car, my social Security number of my birth certificate,
everything they could possibly need to manage my estate. Plus
I leave a little Valentine's Little Love Letters. You know,
the first Valentine was delivered after the death of Saint Valentine.
(08:21):
It was a It was a legacy letter written by
Saint Valentine and look at the impact that made. So
leave a Valentine to your loved ones so that as
they're going through your stuff they have a letter from
you that says, oh, I love you so much. First
of all, it reinforces the fact that you knew you
were going to die, This was something that was expected.
It just helps them to understand that. And then it
(08:41):
also helps them to understand how much you love them
and that you want them to go on and have
a good life and not not be drowning in guilt
and sorrow. I mean they're gonna they're gonna grieve a
little bit. You want them to grieve in a healthy manner,
but grieve in a healthy manner and move on with
their lives.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Said, so, you said the world I was going to
bring up just and you know, just a few minutes ago,
and that was the word procrastinate, all right, So maybe
you could address that at any thoughts you have and
how people could kind of beat procrastination and get started
(09:17):
with the legacy planning.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
I recommend you know, my book is a step by
step process, so that you can just go through the
book into the step by step process, and I'm developed
I just developed an online course to kind of help
you do that step by step by step by step,
but I really recommend doing it with other people to
help you hold you accountable. If you're a couple, you know,
plan a meeting every every Monday night until you get
(09:42):
it done. The reality is, you know, once you get
your will and your trust, whatever you're going to do
for that one, you get that done. Getting all these
other things together doesn't take as much time as you think,
but it makes such a difference for the people that
you leave behind because they know my husband, my husband
had his filing cabinet plastic bags that were in the
(10:05):
closet and so you know, I had to go through
all of those to get all the papers out. So
it's so hard for families to kind of work through
all this stuff. So just putting them in one place
is so critically important. And if you have some type
of the system down where you have other people that
you're working with, your Bible study or book club, another
group that you meet, the morning coffee group that you
(10:27):
meet with, do it together with another with another person
that helps hold you accountable.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah. I was going to say, what if some reasons
I realize I have to do it. I need to
do it. I just can't. I just maybe they're not
that organized of a person or whatever the case I be.
So any So, who would you suggest you turn to
to help?
Speaker 4 (10:50):
Well, I'm I'm I'm actually developing a course, an online
course that they can take that I'm also there to
help them so you know, I can meet with them
and keep them in ale and so on. That's what
I've just kind of developed for me to do. But
if you've got if you've got.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Some with that, I said, that's great, and that's wonderful.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Yeah he did that because I feel there's a need,
there's a need for that. But also if there's there
are people around you, because you know, most of us
we hang out, you know, I go to my church,
I kind of hang out with a group of baby
boomers and we all need to do this. So if
you can hang out with with the like set of people,
and really it's not just limited to baby boomers. Because
(11:30):
if you if you get a life insurance plan on
your family, you should have this all done because you're
admitting you're gonna die, right, so if you have a
life insurance, get this emotional life insurance plan, done as well,
where you have everything together in one place so that
your family's not gonna be arguing with each other and
fighting it with each other. You know, many times it's
(11:50):
he should have died in the hospital, No, he should
have died in hospice, and it will argue over those things.
So that's why you need your healthcare directive, or you know,
they might be arguing over who it's grandma's, you know,
cake plan. You know, all those things need to be
taken care of before you die. They need to know
how to take care of this before you die and
not be surprised at the end. It really is a
disservice to our children if we don't plan for what
(12:13):
is the inevitable. I mean, it's not like we're going
to escape it. It's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
So if there were let's say your top three things,
if if if you're talking to somebody who just was
a procrastinator, and you could convince them just constant, you know,
get these top three things done. First. Let's take it
a step at a time. What would be your most
important things to do well?
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Your healthcare directive, your will, your will, absolutely your will,
and then you know there are a number of the
other things kind of all fall into one category, and
that is kind of taking care of the emotional life
insurance plan, which I believe is like a letter of intense.
For instance, some families are blended, and that might be complicated.
(12:59):
If you have a blended they might get complicated how
you divide things up. So if you divide things up
in a way that is complicated, it's really helpful to
write a letter of intent where you're writing to your family,
I'm dividing my estate up in a certain way because
this happened, or that happened, or Mary Lou took care
(13:19):
of me for the last two years, and I want
to give her a little bit more because of the
work that you did. Or maybe there's a member of
the family that might need long term care. I'm going
to give more for that. It's important that they understand
the reason behind what you're doing and that you have
written that down or told them that. And I like
(13:41):
writing down much better because it's amazing people that are
told things don't always remember them the same way. So
I recommend having a family meeting where you discuss all
this stuff and you record it again, because people don't
remember things the same way, and so you need to
document these things so that when they're in that grief period,
you're not going to complicate hate it by the uncertainty
(14:02):
or that follows if you don't have everything written down
and they aren't. They aren't assured of what's going to happen.
They're trying to figure it out themselves, and that can
lead the conflict among family members, which is not the
legacy you want to leave. By one of the biggest
legacies I want to leave, I've got these two daughters
that just love each other and take care of each other,
and I want to keep it that way when I'm
gone by making sure that everything goes smoothly. And they
(14:25):
they're both attorneys, and they both read my will, and
they both know exactly where everything is, and they know
where my binder is, and so everything's gonna be all
set for them.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
So how do they have the opposite situation that the
person that needs to kind of get get their act together.
They do a pretty good job. They're getting their act together,
but now they want to communicate it to their loved ones,
and your case, like your daughters, their attorneys, they get it,
but some people, some might say, Mom, you're going to
be fine. You're talking foolish. I don't want to hear
(14:55):
all this stuff. How do you react to that?
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Well, that happens quite a It happened even my family.
I've got one daughter that will you know, I can
talk to her about anything and she's all said, And
I've got another one that's like, oh, she kind of cringes.
So what I did is I just said, okay, it's
it's a family holiday. It might be Mother's Day, might
be Thanksgiving, might be some time when we're together. The
gift that I would like for you to give to
(15:19):
me is to sit down with me and let's talk
about all this. So I kind of frame it as
a future planning meeting. And it is a little more
uncomfortable for one person, one of my children, than the other.
But it's so important that I talk that I've talked
to them, and I put most of the things I
talk about in writing, and that way they understand it.
And if you find that you can't, if they don't
(15:40):
want to sit down and talk, then write them a letter.
But put it down in writing. That might be sometimes
a little more comforting. If they read a letter, then
actually sit down and talk, but put it down so
that they understand where everything is, because you don't want
them to start trying to manage all this uncertainty when
they're also grieving.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, that's a great, great suggestion. So Kim, we're going
to take a real quick break. I promise just to
recognize our sponsor and when we come back, we'll talk.
We'll continue the conversation and let you talk a little
bit about your book as well. So do you know
anyone who may be concerned about an older driver well
(16:24):
Senior care Authorities Beyond Driving with Dignity program is a
facilitated self assessment program for older drivers. This program has
been designed to serve as a vital tool to facilitate
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regarding the future of one safe driving career. If the
individual is a safe driver, an advisor will provide him
(16:46):
or her with strategies and how to remain a safe
driver as they progress through the aging process. If driving
retirement is the appropriate decision, then the individual and their
family are offered possible alternative resources in a specific plan
to ensure a smooth and successful transition from the driver's
(17:06):
seat to the passenger seat. So to learn more, go
to Www. Beyond Driving with dignity dot com or call
eight seven seven nine zero seven eight eight four to
one to connect with a senior care authority advisor in
your area. We are back with kim Harmes. Doctor Kimberly
(17:27):
Harms is the author of Are You Ready? How to
Build a Legacy to Die For? So on that subject.
Tell us a little bit more about the book. You know,
I think I know the catalysts for you writing the book,
but go ahead and share that as well, and how
(17:49):
people could get it and anything else you would like
to share.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Well, I wrote the book to help us just get
through this last quarter and live with purpose. The legacy
part is living with purpose, and you know we have
as we get older, our identity changes. We have to
you know, with a mother taking care of children, then
they grow up and now I'm a grandmother, and you know,
do what do I need to do to be useful
in this stage? And how do I proceed to be
(18:14):
to have purpose in my life and have identity in
my life? So the first part of the book, the
first third, is all about building a legacy, building an
important legacy, and of course the most important legacy is
love you just they need to know. Our kids and
our grandkids need to know we love them and we're
proud of them. And there are many other legacies you
can pass on, like hard work, education, faith, all those
(18:35):
things or legacies. Theres thousands of legacies you can pass on,
but living your life with purpose and having that purpose
extend beyond your life because you're passing it on to
the next generation. The second part of the book deals
with death and dying. I became a death dueler during
this time because I wanted to learn more about death
and dying and it explains different beliefs that different people
(18:55):
have about death and dying, and I want the purpose
of that was so that people would not be afraid
of death. We shouldn't be afraid of death. It's going
to happen, let's face it. The last part of it
is a step by step by step instruction on everything
you need to know before you go, all the things
you need to address, and all the things that you
need to do. And it's meant to build that legacy
(19:17):
binder so that you have everything in that one place,
so that your children aren't having to rummage through all
your things out and find all your papers and wonder
what's going to happen after you die. It's all taken
care of. Everything's going to be easy for them after
they go. With the inclusion of legacy letters that maybe
explain some of your background, legacy love letters and explain
(19:38):
how how much you love your children, Valentine for your children.
And then also maybe I'd like people to consider taking
care of their emotional baggage before they go apologizing, if
you need to putting your relationships with people above your ego,
which is a hard thing for us to do that.
There's so many studies out there that know that the
(20:00):
most important predictor of happiness is your relationships with other people,
and that becomes so important, especially as we get older.
So make sure those relationships are good. So I have
templates to write an apology letter, I have templates to
write a legacy letter, templates to write a reconciliation letter,
and so those are all in there so you can
just step everything you need to know. And then I
(20:23):
also have if you go to my website dot reallyharms
dot com, you can you can get a four step
free four step guide. You can just download a free
four step guide to having that family discussion. So what
do you do to have a family, how do you
plan it, what do you say? You know, you make
sure you record it. All of those things are in
that four step guide. And then also there's a there's
(20:45):
a you can just put a click, click the little
button and you can get the link to my book
Are you ready? How to Build a Legacy to Die For?
So that's all on my website, doctor Kimberlyharms dot com.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Right, wonderful, wonderful. So the it can you So you
can go to the website or on Amazon.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Yeah, you go the way. The book is available on Amazon,
Barnes and Noble, most places where you can buy books online.
It's available in all those places. And so it's a
it's an easy one to get. But if you go
to my website, you just click the click the link
and it goes right to that the Amazon link. Yeah,
it's right there on the website.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
So if I may, I know this is probably you know,
I mean, I know you've written about it, talked about it,
but it's got to be still difficult to discuss. But
I just like to you know, there's a lot of
people I'm sure that have suffered from a family member
with suicide. Unfortunately, it's all too commonplace today, unfortunately, So
(21:56):
maybe you could just share your thoughts, uh. I mean,
you've you know, you've come from a dark place, but
it seems like you getting through it are gone, you know,
getting through it a lot better. I'm sure you never
get over it, but maybe finding some sort of purpose,
you know, after suicide, maybe you could just share your
(22:19):
thoughts to help those that are going through it or
have gone through it.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Right well, absolutely, I would love to just give everyone
out there who is going through either thoughts of suicide
or surviving suicide, or someone of their family is committed suicide.
I just want to just give you a big hug,
because it's a horrible place to be any of those places.
It's a horrible place to be. But there is a
(22:44):
light at the end of the tunnel, and I think
that's one thing everyone needs to know that how bad
it might seem now, is not going to be that
way in the future. And I think people just need
to have that hope. I had something when my mother died.
I was seventeen years old. I was just devastated. I
can't you know, you can't even you can't even describe
the pain when this happens, because it's not only the
(23:06):
death of your mother, but the death of your mother
by suicide complicates everything. It's a very complicated form of grief.
And then when my son passed away, he was on
top of the world. Uh, he was, you know, at Columbia,
he was elected to student government. He had just gotten
he came home for Christmas and he had made the
Dean's list in engineering. But he was also playing jazz
(23:26):
piano in the jazz piano program. And that's why he
went to Columbia because he could study engineering and play
jazz piano in New York City. I mean, he was
on top of the world, elected as student government, when
the plays at Barnard.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Just.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
Having a ball. Got home, was so happy, and we
were so happy for him, as you you know, with children,
you're you're you're almost just it's like you're you're you
can tell how when they're when they're really doing well,
and he was really doing well and.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Only as happy as a child.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
Right, absolutely, absolutely, so we were so happy at Christmas
because all of our kids are doing well. And he
went back to school and two weeks later, his girlfriend
broke up with him. In forty five minutes after that,
he was gone, that brilliant mind that was only nineteen
years old, not fully developed, who was a very impulsive
(24:14):
person because jazz piano. The reason he was a good
jazz pianist is he was impulsive, and he was kind
of a Robin Williams like character. He was very, very funny,
very joyful. And then he was gone, and so we
were just absolutely our our minds were just completely destroyed.
We were shattered. We couldn't think. You can't eat, you
can't you know, you don't know what to say. You're
(24:35):
the worst nightmare you could ever have is actually your reality.
And it's just a horrible place, as anyone who's been
there knows, it's horrible. I had something happened to me
about a couple of months after Eric died. That was
a gift. Didn't know it at the time, but it
was a gift. And I was coming out of my office.
I mean, we were Denis, my husband. You are both dentists,
(24:57):
and when you're a dentist, or if you're in the healthcare
professions and you have patients that you see a lot
in Eric was very well known in our small town.
People just love that guy. And so throughout the day,
twenty or thirty times we would, you know, see someone
that we hadn't seen before and they would express their condolences,
and so we would kind of just go through this
(25:17):
time and time, which is which is hard. And I
was coming and you're in that zombie stage. Anyone knows
who's been through catastrophic gloss knows a zombie stage where
you're kind of dead on the inside and you're just
trying to smile on the outside, and you know, engage
in discussion, but you can hardly, you know, hardly move.
And I was coming out of my office and my
husband was there and he was having a very deep
(25:38):
discussion with his cousin, and all of a sudden, the
cousin came over to me wagging his finger in my face,
right in my face, and which surprised me because I'm
a grieving mother. People weren't doing that to me, you know,
they were being kind, but he was wagging his finger.
He was very angry, and he said, don't you ever
let your remaining chill and feel that they are not enough.
(26:03):
Don't you do that to them? And it struck me
like a bolt of lightning when he said that, because
he had lost his brother at about the same age,
and he felt that he lost his parents at the
same time. He felt that his parents could not function
well enough to adjust to their living children, the help
(26:27):
of their living children, to be a parent to their
living children, because they were so consumed with grief over
their dead one. And I was headed to the same place.
I was at the bottom of that grief pit. I
could just barely suck through some air because of all
the mud. I mean, I was down there, and I
was just thinking, why even try to get up, because
(26:48):
I'll just get kicked down again. I mean, I was
getting ready to make that my permanent home. And I
realized I wasn't going to do that to my children
and to my husband. My husband had just had a
liver transplant. He had liver cancer and had a liver transplant,
was recovering from that, so my husband was compromised. My children,
they were in one was in law school, one was
(27:09):
out of law school, and and they were suffering too.
And I realized that I had to fight and kick
and scream and claw my way out of that grief pit.
I had to fight, and you got to fight your
way out of it. It doesn't come naturally when you're
when you're down deep in that pit, it doesn't happen naturally.
(27:30):
You gotta fight it, and you got to work to
get out. And I did, and it took a long time.
It's not easy escaping that pit. But I will tell
you after, you know, a few years, maybe five years,
I was able to breathe fresh air again. I was
able to look at the world without that trout, because
you have that trout over you when you're in that
(27:51):
grief pit. And that has been such a gift, not
only to me because it's it's a wonderful place to
live out of that pit, but it's been a gift
to everybody around me. And I now have my two daughters,
got married, I have six grandchildren, and I'm able to
be there, excuse me, full time in the present for
(28:13):
those grandkids. And I love them so much. You know,
you just can't even express how much you love your
little grand kids. That's well, but I can be there
love them. But I wouldn't be there in this way
had I allowed grief to take over my life and
it and it'll do that if you let it so, my, my.
What I'd like to encourage everyone is that if you're
(28:34):
in that grief pit, fight, fight, fight, do everything you
can to get out. You're going to go up and
you're gonna wave, is going to hitch, and you're going
to fall back down in it again. But it is
worth the battle to get out, and everyone manages it differently.
There's no set time limit, but just keep fighting.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Thank you for that, doctor, Kimberly Hiram check it out.
Are you ready how to build a legacy to die for?
Thank you for joining us on Boomers Today. Kim, thank you,
thank you. I want to thank everybody for joining us.
Please be safe, talk to everybody next show.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
You've been listening to Boomers Today with Frank Sampson. To
learn more about today's show, visit Boomerstodayradio dot com and
join us next time for another edition of Boomers Today.
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