Everything End of Life.
This podcast is dedicated to talking to experts and others about all aspects of death and dying. You know, that thing we don't really want to talk about!
As a hospice carer and former psychiatric nurse as well as writer and former Theatre director, I invite guests to talk about their roles in and what to expect in the last four weeks of life. What happens to the person dying, what help is there, what to do before and after the event.
Many of the families we go in to see have one thing in common and that is that they don't know what to expect. I thought that a Podcast may help and then discovered so much to explore that is of interest to people such as alternative funerals, what do Hospices actually do, what role do religions play?
So join me for the first interview as we begin this Podcast with Clinical Nurse Specialist Becky Rix where we grasp the nettle and discuss what happens to us generally in those last four weeks.
Time to explore "Everything End of Life".
Everything End of Life.
Dr. Kim Harms: Resilience, Grief, and Building a Legacy Amidst Life’s Trials
Have you ever faced a series of unimaginable challenges and found yourself wondering how to move forward? Join us as we sit down with the extraordinary Dr. Kim Harms, whose life has been a testament to resilience and transformation. Born with missing fingers due to thalidomide, Dr. Kim Harms overcame incredible odds, only to face further heartbreak when her bipolar mother took her own life when Dr. Kim Harms was just 17. Despite these early hardships, she achieved her dream of becoming a dentist and found happiness in her marriage to Jim. However, her journey took another painful turn with the loss of her brother, her husband’s battle with liver cancer, and the tragic suicide of her son, Eric. Listen as she reflects on these profound experiences and the shifting societal attitudes toward mental health and suicide.
In the aftermath of her son’s death and the severe neck pain that ended her dental career, Dr. Kim Harms discovered a new calling as a grief counselor. Drawing on her personal experiences, she provides invaluable insights, emphasizing acceptance, processing grief, and finding a lasting place for loved ones. Her commitment to honoring her son’s memory led her to establish memorial libraries in Rwanda, helping others find solace through community and remembrance. Following her husband’s passing, Dr. Kim Harms continued her work with widows and authored devotionals and a thought-provoking book, "Are you ready? How to build a Legacy to die for." As a death doula, she offers practical advice on preparing for the end of life, ensuring a smoother transition for those left behind.
The episode also touches on the heartfelt initiative of creating a legacy through letters and memories, providing family members with a 'soft landing' after one's own passing. Dr. Kim Harms shares her touching journey to Rwanda, inspired by the resilience of genocide survivors, and her mission to support local libraries with children’s books. We discuss the importance of preparing for the end of life, maintaining a diverse identity in later years, and the impact of meaningful after-death communications. Tune in for an inspiring conversation with Dr. Kim Harms, full of life lessons on resilience, legacy, and the enduring power of community.
For those interested in what Palliative care looks like at home there is "The Last Kiss" (Not a Romance)
Available on Amazon now
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Kiss-Romance-Carers-Stories/dp/1919635289/ref=sr_1_1?crid=13D6YWONKR5YH&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9._59mNNFoc-rROuWZnAQfsG0l3iseuQuK_gx-VxO_fe6DLJR8M0Az039lJk_HxFcW2o2HMhIH3r3PuD7Dj-D6KTwIHDMl2Q51FGLK8UFYOBwbRmrLMbpYoqOL6I5ruLukF1vq7umXueIASDS2pO91JktkZriJDJzgLfPv1ft5UtkdQxs9isRDmzAYzc5MKKztINcNGBq-GRWKxgvc_OV5iKKvpw0I5d7ZQMWuvGZODlY.fqQgWV-yBiNB5186RxkkWvQYBoEsDbyq-Hai3rU1cwg&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+last+kiss+not+a+romance&qid=1713902566&s=books&sprefix=The+Last+kiss+n%2Cstripbooks%2C107&sr=1-1
Hello, Dr King-Harms, and welcome to Everything. End of Life. Normally I kick off by asking people a little bit about themselves, what they do, what they've done, and to give us a little bit about your story. So please feel free.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, thank you. I'm so excited to be here, Jason, and I want to thank being in Great Britain for the hospice movement, which I'm just a huge fan. I benefited from that when my husband passed away and I'm so glad that we have options now, which is fabulous. Well, so my story basically is when I was born, my mother believe it or not, there are some thalidomide babies here in the United States she happened to be going right to traveling to Cincinnati, ohio, where they were testing it and when she was pregnant with me. So when I was born, I was missing some fingers due to thalidomide and my mother was bipolar but wonderful. She was the best mother ever. She was fractured in many ways but she was absolutely the best mother ever. But I lost her when I was 17 to suicide and that was a very, very hard thing to do. That was my first big round of experience with the death of a loved one. Was that when my mother died?
Speaker 1:I mean that's fascinating, isn't it? I mean at that age, and that must have been such an explosion in your mind of why, oh heck.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and one of the things too at that time which has changed dramatically she was Catholic and at that time they would not give her a funeral. So you know, I remember this going to the viewing in this room. That was just full of shame. I mean, it was just a horrible, horrible thing. So that happened when I was young. But then, you know, I went to school. I found this wonderful guy named Jim Harms who wanted to be a dentist. So I figured, you know, hey, if I maybe became a dentist he would marry me, because this was back in the 70s, that's what you did in the 70s. But you know, I'm missing some fingers. So it's like I only have seven fingers. So it's like what the heck? Do you think there'd be some? You know, would they even let me in dental school with seven fingers? Long story short, I was able to find an advisor. That got me in contact with someone at the dental school and they said well, you know, one hand goes to dental school, the other hand holds a mirror. So, yes, you can go to dental school. And my plan worked. I got the guy. So that I got the guy. We went to dental school. We became dentists.
Speaker 2:I had a great career in dentistry. We had a nice, wonderful small practice. I was the first woman president of the Minnesota Dental Association. I was a national spokesperson for the American Dental Association. So I had this fabulous career and a life was going along wonderfully for our family. We had three children, three beautiful children, and then in 2007, my brother passed away from a heart attack. Two months later, my husband was diagnosed with liver cancer. He got a liver transplant six months later, but then six months after that, our beautiful, beautiful, beautiful son, eric, took his own life.
Speaker 2:He was at Columbia University. He was this brilliant, beautiful, loving, kind, caring golden boy just brilliant. And he was recruited by Columbia University. He was in the engineering program, but he was also in the jazz program. He was a jazz pianist and, as you know, jazz pianists are very impulsive. That's what makes them so good at jazz piano, right. So the jazz pianist and he had the best first semester ever.
Speaker 2:He was elected to student government. He was participating in the plays with the students from Barnard. There was girls over at Barnard. He was having a great time doing that. He was playing in the jazz program and he was on the dean's list in engineering. So like, how can you top that? And he came home and was on top of the world, just on top of the world. Never seen him so happy after his first semester. And he went back and two weeks later his girlfriend broke up with him, which is a normal part of life, that's what happens, right. But that impulsive 19 year old brain, um, he took his life within 45 minutes of the breakup oh, that is hard, that's so hard, that's seriously so hard, that is seriously impulsive, very impulsive, if he had had a moment to think.
Speaker 2:But anyway, that's so.
Speaker 1:That must have been so devastating to have that whole knife swept away from you just without any chance to say anything. Vile to say anything vile.
Speaker 2:No, no warning. No warning whatsoever to us, and we were completely devastated. My two daughters, my husband and I were just. You know, you can't even describe it. Your whole life has exploded. You know, I thought I'd been through a typical time, but you know, there's nothing like this. So.
Speaker 2:But what I found out, though, which was wonderful wonderful about how we as a society are progressing is that Eric, my family were Baptist, my family's Baptist, and my son, eric, went to a Catholic boys school, but he wasn't there anymore. He was at Columbia University. He was away from that but, unlike my mother, when Eric had, like this, huge thousands of people at his funeral, he had the entire all boys Catholic military school. He had hundreds of those students. They bust the kids on a school day, a school he no longer attended because he had moved on. They bust the kids to his funeral.
Speaker 2:Our church showed up for his funeral. All the pastors talk as he used to sing in the choir at our funeral. All the pastors talk with him about him and about suicide at the funeral, and I'll never forget the most amazing gift I got was, as we were taking his casket down the aisle, all those boys, these beautiful, beautiful young boys, high school boys, lined up in their dressed uniforms and saluted. I get goosebumps even talking about saluted his casket as we were bringing this along and then comparing that to my mother's funeral, you know. So I, the Catholics were. The Catholics were supportive and I couldn't. They couldn't be more supportive. The Baptists were supportive, they couldn't be more supportive. So I'm I'm just so grateful that we have you know, we're progressing to the point where we support people with mental illness and we didn't even know he had mental. We didn't know that he would be this impulsive. It was a big surprise. So I'm able to, when we talk about death and dying, I'm able to kind of compare the two from 35, you know difference in 35 years.
Speaker 1:I mean, in a little while we'll come on to the whole idea of legacy and things, but because you couldn't say goodbye, I mean that is that must have been in and of itself legacy for you, for something to hold on to, that he was so loved, you know.
Speaker 2:He was loved and they even had a big ceremony in Columbia. They planted a tree, they made him an honorary member of the class, the graduating class of 2012. Because he was a loving, kind, caring, compassionate young man, he was just, you know, wonderful. You know, of course, I'm his mother, but still he really was. He was considered that way by everyone and so an important thing that happened to me after that when we talk about death and dying and trying to grieve and trying to just get your life back after a catastrophic loss, I had this very important thing said to me, and that was we were coming. We're in that zombie phase. Anyone that's had a catastrophic loss, you go through the zombie phase where you're like trying to smile on the outside and on the inside You're dead.
Speaker 2:You just can't hardly move. So we had to go back to work, which was good, because otherwise we'd be a zombie at home, and which is hard as a dentist, because you have to. You know who wants a dentist, who's grieving, right? You want that drill being focused on your tooth, right? So you have to go back and try to make that work.
Speaker 1:These are my problems.
Speaker 2:You've got your problem I gotta get that, we gotta be focused on that. So, um, anyway. So we're back at work and still zombie like. And I was walking out of the office one day and, um, my husband was talking to his cousin and they were involved in a very active conversation. And as I walked toward them, the cousin came up to me wagging his finger in my face and I'm a grieving mother, you know, so people were kind of pretty nice to me at that time Wagging his finger in my face and said don't you ever let your remaining children feel that they are not enough, don't you ever do that to them? And I was like what, what? And I realized he had given me an amazing gift. He had lost his brother at about 19,. And he felt that he lost his parents too. His parents just couldn't cope with the grief. They weren't processing it to a point where they could parent their two remaining children.
Speaker 1:So this must have given a bit of an epiphany to you at the time.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was like a lightning strike, because it was like, whoa, my grief is just not my grief. My grief is the grief of my children, my grief. My husband had just had a liver transplant, right, so he's recovering physically as well, and I love my husband. I love my husband, I love my children and so, as a gift of love to them, I just became determined that I am going to fight my way out of this grief pit. I'm going to do everything I can. I am not going to stay here forever, and I wish I could say that, you know, right away.
Speaker 2:I was happy again. Of course not. It took years. It took years, but I was fighting every step of the way, and the message I'd love to give to the people that are listening is that you have to fight your way out of that grief pit. If you don't fight, you just stay down there. I mean, I was almost buying curtains, you know. It was like, okay, I'm going to live here the rest of my life. I'm never going to be happy, you know, because that's where you go when you, when you have something like, that's where you go. So you got to fight and kick and scrape and just, and then you're going to go up and then you're going to fall back down again because you'll get another wave of grief. But you just have to fight, and fight, and fight and continue to fight. And it's worth it because I was able to get out of the grief pit and and and. It's so much better out here, it's so much better.
Speaker 1:Welcome back the real world Exactly. It's so much better when you.
Speaker 2:It's so much better. Hello, welcome back out to the real world. Exactly, it's so much better when you can live in joy. It's so much better when you can give love fully and not you'll be hampered by that grief shroud right, that's covering you so I really like another question here so yeah, that journey that you went, which took years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, on the outside, what would people have seen um?
Speaker 2:for the first. Okay, I don't really remember the first year, I have to tell you that was yeah. Um, they would have seen someone that looked like I was coping very well.
Speaker 2:You know I was yeah I was, you know, and I was coping well and I think I think for me and everybody's different, I think that's the other thing some people can get out faster, some people can never get out. I mean, it's a's a different for everybody and you have to respect that. They saw someone that looked as if they were coping well when my children were around. I really focused on them. Those words rang in my ears every day. I did my best to help my husband, who was suffering physically and emotionally, and also got help. Um I I suffer from depression, obviously. Suicide mother, suicide, son, like I'm in the middle. Um I I I got help. I suffer from depression and I'll be treated the rest of my life and thank the lord that we have treatment because it helped me to get out of the pit. My husband, on the other hand, did not get treatment because he's a. I used to call him my stubborn Norwegian because you know they're tough, he's a farm boy.
Speaker 2:You know they're tough, they don't they don't need help, they can do it all on their own. And what happened to him is his heart. That checked out great before his transplant. Within a year, he was getting heart surgery. His heart just fell apart and literally fell apart and literally fell apart. And I really believe that that was because he could not admit that he was suffering from depression and get treatment, because he felt he could do it himself.
Speaker 1:The effect of the mind on the body, you know, and the emotions, and everything is well documented as being such a strong, huge link, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and and so that that's kind of how I coped in and it took. I think it took me maybe three to four years to kind of be kind of normal on the inside. You know, I wouldn't say it was like joyful, yet I was OK and I was. You know, I was pretty, pretty normal, I was pretty normal, pretty normal, I was pretty normal. And then you know, after about 10 years I've done a lot of things.
Speaker 2:And well, another thing that happened is one year after Eric died. One year, I went to the. I was having a lot of pain and we dentists have a lot of back pain and neck pain, so that's not unusual and I went over to the Mayo Clinic because I was really really having a hard time with my neck. As it turned out, I had a problem with my neck, the compression of my neck. As it turned out, I had a problem with my neck, the compression of my neck. That affected of all places. It could have affected any place else in my body. It affected my drilling fingers. Like you know, I only had one good hand right. I had one good hand and wouldn't know that that's a place that turned compression such a slap in the face, isn't it?
Speaker 2:what the heck? And the doctor said okay, you're done. So I was like the breadwinner, because my husband was practicing part-time. I was a breadwinner, I was full-time and now I'm done and my job gave me something to go to every day that I was good at, and it gave me fulfillment. And now I can't even have my job anymore, but also an income. That must have been an income.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was really hard, jings, it was the pits, it really was. And I was talking about wonderful pastors. I was talking to my pastor, you know, and he said, as I was like crying on the phone, like you know, and he said well, you know, kim, let's just think about it, it's not the worst thing that's happened to you. It was like you know what? I guess? Hello, I guess. I guess you're right if that's true. So I had to kind of get over that. But what it did is it gave me time on my hands, right? So now I don't have a job. So I became a grief counselor, thinking that was going to be a really good thing and it was very helpful.
Speaker 2:And during my time as I was studying for that, I learned a lot about grief and I learned about tasks of mourning. There's something called warden's tasks of mourning, when I love tasks because it gives you something to hold on to, right, you got a task to do. It's not like a stage. We all know the Kubler-Ross stages of grief, which are great, but they're stages. It's kind of like you go through them, but a task I mean I can get my hands around a task.
Speaker 2:And the first task was acceptance, and that takes a while. The second task was processing the grief. We have to process it. I wished I could wake up like Rip Van Winkle, right, and 20 years go to sleep for 20 years. Wake up and I'm fine, right. But you can't. You have to process it. So you have to process the grief. That's the hard part. And then you have to accept your new reality this is my new life and then you have to find a lasting, enduring place for the person that you loved, and that's what I would help me a lot.
Speaker 2:We were able to, with a lot of different circumstances, arranged to have memorial libraries in Rwanda for Eric, and we now have 65 memorial libraries Eric Harms Memorial Libraries all over Rwanda. He loved books, memorial libraries all over Rwanda. He loved books. He was a Latin scholar. He loved, you know. So this would be such a fitting legacy for my son and, and then four years ago my husband died of heart failure and and so now we have some libraries for him too, so I'm able to kind of have that place for them in Rwanda. And then, I was.
Speaker 2:I learned that I worked with some widows groups and I wrote a couple of widows devotionals to help them get through all the you know the process of grief after you die you have an identity crisis, you have loneliness, you have, I mean, all that stuff you have. So I've learned to do that as well. So that has helped me in my grief. And then I wrote when my after my husband died and it was like now, wait a minute, because I was taking care of him for all that time. So now, what do I do now? Now, you know, you know I'm now I'm a widow what the heck. Which, by the way, 75 percent of women become widows. So that's you know. Hello, it's not a good yeah we don't last.
Speaker 1:We don't last too long.
Speaker 2:You guys are dropping and I'm a widow, and now I'm alone. I've never been. I got married at 19. We were married for 44 years. Now I'm alone and I'm a widow. What the heck do I do now?
Speaker 2:So I worked with the widows groups and that was very helpful. And then I thought, you know, we don't know how to. Nobody gives us a workbook for what we do this part of our lives, like I'm between menopause and death. That's where I'm at right now. And what do we do during this time? You know, we usually plan for things. We plan for retirement, we plan for all these other things that we do. And now, what do I plan for now? And so I thought, well, maybe I need to plan for the time when I go right, because I'm going to go, and I wanted to make sure that my children and my grandchildren have the softest landing when I go.
Speaker 2:And that's why I wrote the book Build a Legacy. Come to Turns with Death and Dying. I became a death doula. And then here's all the things we need to do, including forgive, reconcile. I have templates for letters. I have all the things we just need to do so that when I die so instead of when I die, my children are mourning.
Speaker 2:And then they have to come here and like, search through all my drawers to find my papers, all that stuff, and then you know, then all the morning they're going to think, well, why didn't mom prepare for me? You know there's a little anger there sometimes when they do that. So instead of that, now, now, jason, I've got this whole thing planned. So, instead of that, now when I die they'll be mourning. And now they're going to get their three ring legacy binder with everything they need. It's got my health care directive for before I die. It's got my will, or where the will is located. It has all of my passwords, it's got all the numbers that they need. It has my title to my car, it's got my birth certificate, it's got my social security number, it's got all the real estate things they need, all in one spot.
Speaker 2:So what they're going to do then now is they're going to open that book and say, yay, mom really loved us. She put all this together for us. But then there's there's a bonus, there's a bonus, there's an extra bonus, and that is they're going to have legacy love letters. So they're going to go through. Mom is so great, she left this for us, and then they're going to find Valentine's to them. Every one of my family members has a Valentine, has a dear. You know, daughter, I'm so proud to be your mother. Thank you for giving me such a wonderful life. That tells them I know I'm going to die and I want you to know you go on and live a happy life without me. So that's a point of the book, is that? How do we prepare them to have a soft landing?
Speaker 1:after we go. So that's great. That's an amazing thing, because what we were saying just before we got into this, uh, into the podcast, was this is something it's an area that we don't really think about a lot, which is, if we have time, we can, you know, get these things prepared. And certainly, when I've been into some patients, uh, in the last two, three weeks, their relatives are saying they're non-communicative and we don't know where the passwords are, right, we can't access the bank account because we don't know anything about that and, uh, so to have that all laid out for you, you know, and your preferences, we do have um, here in england we've got a thing starting up called my choices, uh, and it's been going for a little while now and it's it's trying to get people to have that conversation about what your choices are for when you, when you die.
Speaker 1:Now, that's the after bit, isn't it? That's the I'm going to die and now I want to be shot into space with my cats and dogs and everything you know. Whatever you want to have done, that's fine, but the you bit, what you've left behind, that is really special, because I know when my mother died. We've got a hamper full of photographs, which is great, but they're photographs with lots of people. I have not got a clue who they are. So if I had photographs these days, I'd write on the back the date, what was going on in that photograph, and all that, and then I'd keep that for the kids. So, this book that you've written I think it's probably one of those really important books that you know everybody needs to have yeah, or a version thereof? Um, I'm gonna ask you, though I'm gonna just come away from the book just for a sec, and I just want to rock wind back there to rwanda. Now, what? What took you to Rwanda? Did you skip over that? Really? Definitely, I thought what brought you? What took you to Rwanda?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm so glad you asked, because this is my favorite part. Okay, when my son died, I was in that zombie stage and I was just suffocating. That's what happens, and I think there was some divine intervention going on here, because I suddenly ran into people from Rwanda. Now, I had never come across anyone from Rwanda my entire life ever. Now, I had never come across anyone from Rwanda my entire life ever. And when the genocide happened, I was raising my kids and I thought, oh, that's so horrible, how terrible. And you know, let's go and get the diaper change. You know, that's kind of where I was in my life. So, all of a sudden, after he died, I started meeting people from Rwanda.
Speaker 2:It was at a prayer breakfast once and I sat next to a woman and she was from Rwanda and she was telling me about her family that she lost. She lost her two daughters and her husband. They were all killed and she told me about them. And then she said but my new family? And I thought, what You're, what your new family? She has, what the Rwandans have done, and they're an amazing culture. What they have done is they've adopted the orphans. So so she lost her husband. Wow, she adopted orphans and she married a man who was I think was, perhaps was widowed, I can't remember for sure, but she married. She married a man, adopted orphans and now she has a new family and she is raising the new family and I thought what?
Speaker 2:And then she was she had a joyful demeanor and I was going how can you you know what the how can you be joyful? I mean, I was working towards it, but I never really saw people out there. Right, how can you be joyful after losing your entire, not just her family, her children and her house, her entire family was wiped out. And then after that, I got a friend who gave me the book Left to Tell by Immaculée Elie Begazi. It was a New York Times bestseller years ago and it's a book about how she survived in a bathroom with eight other girls while the killers were all around searching for them. It was a miraculous story and I thought, wow, rwanda is kind of hitting me right. And I thought, wow, rwanda is kind of hitting me right.
Speaker 2:And then I went to lunch with a dear, dear friend of mine who happened to be on the board of Books for Africa, which is based here in Minneapolis, and she said you know, kim, I was in Rwanda years ago and before the genocide, and I've always wanted to bring them a library, because that's what Books for Africa does. Why don't we put it in memory of Eric? And it was like, oh my gosh, the light bulbs came on. So we raised funds for the first container to go and we got seven libraries and of course I'm a dentist, so I developed a relationship with the dental school and we had law libraries to the law schools, because they have a relationship where they have a whole law library that was developed by Kofi Annan and Walter Mondale. Brand new books donated by Thomson Reuters, which is a publishing law book publishing company specifically designed for emerging democracies in Africa. All right, Okay.
Speaker 2:I was going to ask about that.
Speaker 1:How on earth do you choose what books should be in such a new environment, new library in a different culture? That must. In such a new environment, new library in a different culture that must be.
Speaker 2:Well, as things would, as divine intervention would have it, this was Eric died in 2009. And in 2009, rwanda switched its language of education to English. Yeah, so they were desperate for books. And so what we do, what Books for Africa does? It's a fabulous.
Speaker 2:It's a biggest shipper of donated books to Africa. They ship books to every single country. They have libraries in every country and what they do is you pick the libraries that you want, you know the library, the project, and then they send out an order form and they have a great big warehouse where people donate books and slightly use they don't, you know. And then they send out an order form and they have a great big warehouse where people donate books and slightly use they don't you know. They don't take really old books or new books, and you know no encyclopedias. And it has to be up to date because the world changes. Look at how borders change, right, so they order the books that they want.
Speaker 2:Now they can't order specific titles, but they order the genre that they want and many of the schools order, you know many of the schools we brought, you know, math books, science books. We have an all girls school that we sent. They liked. Many of them come here to the US for education. So we had college entrance exam books that we got from a publisher, merck, the Merck company that does Merck manuals, which is like a little almost medical Bible. We're able to send thousands of Merck manuals to Rwanda for the dentist and the physician, because we started with the dentist and the physician said hey, what about us? So we sent them to the physician, so they have and we now have six.
Speaker 1:It's just going to spread.
Speaker 2:It just spreads and we have 65 libraries now and and but, but more so the libraries we were able to develop, those libraries in Eric's name and now in my husband's name, and but what they did for me was they were the best grief counselors ever, because when I went there and we told them I lost my son and this is in honor of my son, I lost my son and this is in honor of my son I was just surrounded by people. I mean all of these women. They're mostly women, because the men kind of there's a shortage of men there because they were killed off or put in jail for a long time. So the women were just surrounded me with love and I could see on their faces and I started it was, I think, 16 years after the genocide, which is where I am now with my son's loss I could see on their faces that they had found joy. They were able to find joy, and the Hutu women and the Tutsi women worked together in cooperatives what you know. So they learned what they found. What they decided was that they did not want their children growing up in an environment like that. So the only way they could do that is that they learned to forgive and to reconcile and to rebuild their country based on those principles.
Speaker 2:And when I went there the first time, it was really kind of funny because I went there the first time and the prisoners were still in jail for the genocide. Most of them went there for 20 years. So there were walks, so there'd be all these work details, because they go and they, you know, they farm their own food, right. So you'd be driving along in the country and you'd see this long detail with maybe 30 prisoners in pink jumpsuits walking along and one guard in the front, one guard in the back with a rifle, and the prisoners all had sickles and hoes and machetes and all of the tools that were used in the genocide to kill, right. And there might have been 30 of them and there were two guards. And I was talking to my guy and I said wait a minute, this is a dangerous situation. They could turn on those guards in a minute. And he looked at me and this is so typical of the Rwandan mentality that I love. He said well, Kim, they're not going to do that.
Speaker 2:Where would they go If they tried to escape their families would send them back to jail because they have to work through their sentence. And I said whoa, whoa, this is an amazing culture. So I I just they did so much for me. I mean, when we take a look at the library situation they were.
Speaker 2:They saved me in so many ways by, first of all, giving me a legacy for my son yeah but second of all, giving me the understanding that, no matter what happens to you, no matter what, you can find joy again. May not seem like that, but you can find joy again. It may not seem like that, but you can find joy again in their culture. What a record of.
Speaker 1:I've got to bring that and reflect that. I mean, that is such an amazing, as you say, cultural thing. As you probably know, over here we have Northern Ireland and it's had its troubles over the years and there's been the Catholics and the Protestants and there's been attempts at reconciliation but culturally quite often they're miles apart and they still have separate schools in many areas and there is a kind of big effort to change that. But what a great lesson to learn from the Rwandans is that you know if you want to integrate, actually do that, you know, properly with family. You know that's an amazing lesson to learn.
Speaker 2:So I'm sorry. One thing I just wanted to say is that they, when it comes to religion in Rwanda, they are respectful of all religions. The religions, religious group leaders, work together. It's mostly Christian country, but they're Muslims there and then there's some of the Batois, the indigenous peoples that were there. But they work together with all religions and they accept all religions, accept their differences, and I mean we could learn. I mean I would like to send all of our politicians to Rwanda here in the United States, and I mean we could learn.
Speaker 2:I mean I would like to send all of our politicians to Rwanda. Here in the United States, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Come on, you know they learn that. So I'm a great believer in keeping religion well out of politics. In fact, you know that that should they should be. You know well, they are diametrically opposed, really. So you know, I find it amazing to have a vicar or a priest as a politician, and yet in some countries that's exactly what you've got. So that's quite peculiar. So, okay, let's just come back because and so you've written this book and how is that going? How are you getting that out there to people? I mean, there must be be, obviously, come on podcasts like myself, but I think you probably won some competitions or two. Would that be correct to say?
Speaker 2:It did win it was my favorite was the Pacific Book Awards. It was the inspirational book of the year for 2024.
Speaker 2:So, I was really excited about that and it did one of one a lot of competitions. So I was really excited about that and it did one of one of a lot of competitions. That's kind of and I am not. You know, I don't have a. It's a, it's a hybrid publisher, so it's kind of self-published, so I don't really know how to. I mean, I'm a dentist. I don't know how to sell books Right.
Speaker 1:This is absolutely I've done a book and you know, trying to do the self-publishing thing, I haven't got time, I've got all these kids, you know. So I'm so, I'm so impressed with how you've done, you know but it's one to be able to put out there.
Speaker 1:That is one that you know people need to read, you know. So, yeah, so, um, so what's the next step? I mean, so you've got, you've got this grief counseling. You're uh, um, you're published author. You're out there with libraries across Rwanda. So which other part of the world are you about to overtake or take over?
Speaker 2:well, you know I'm a grandma, so I got six grandkids and. But but as a grandma, what I find out is at this time of life, especially as a widow and a widow grandma is that you're. You know, you can't let your identity become just one thing. You have to, you have to kind of spread out. Now I have grandchildren and the the oldest ones are about the 12. They're 12 years old and they're they're 12, going on 20. You know how that goes when they're in middle school now. So they're, they're older and I realize that as they get older they don't really need their nana anymore. I'm not having to babysit there's. So you kind of have to like get your life focused on a lot of things. But my first priority are these little pumpkins, those little grandchildren. I just love them so much I can hardly stand it. And then what I'm doing is I, I'm work, I really have this a mission and I think I'm somebody that has to kind of be on a mission. You know, I kind of have to have that impression.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, Kind of my, that's my thing, right, and as long as my brain is still kind of working because you know, when you get older the words kind of you lose some of them in your head as long as it's still working and I was a speaker in dentistry. I used to speak all over the world in dentistry. I'm in my fourth quarter of life because I can do the math.
Speaker 1:But either, you know, you're in the fourth quarter I'm never in that really no, I'm 68, so oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, julie does not look.
Speaker 2:68 just thank you. But yeah, my joints, my joints are 68 years old, so I just got my new hip. You know I'm in, I'm in that stage, so I'm 68 and I see all the people around me that are in the fourth quarter of life and know it now remember you're either know you're in the fourth quarter order of your life because you go to bed or you don't know because, who knows, the death comes unexpectedly. I just lost a 54-year-old niece, so everybody needs to prepare for this. But the fourth quarter people know they have to prepare. So I'm going around now.
Speaker 2:I was just in an assisted living center yesterday helping people get focused on the soft landing for their children and their grandchildren and helping them write, especially the letters. That's my. That's the part that's closest to my heart. They got, you got to get the other stuff done too. So I have all that in my book. I have a list of everything that needs to be done.
Speaker 2:But the part that's closest to my heart is that after death, communication that says I was. I was the luckiest grandma in the whole world to have you as my grandchild. You contributed so much to my life. And give them that last Valentine, you know. And when you look at the St Valentine story St Valentine left you know whether it's tradition or not, but the story is that he left a letter to his true love that was delivered after he died. So that's kind of the story of the Valentine. So it's kind of like leaving a Valentine to your children and grandchildren. And my, my, my thinking of going through that book and all of a sudden like, oh, my gosh, valentine's, you know just just being able to create that experience after I die.
Speaker 2:That's that I want to help people do, because I think we need to leave that next generation stronger and more resilient emotionally as well as anything else. Yes, yes, yes, and I don't know about Great Britain, but here in the US we baby boomers kind of spoiled our kids a little bit. We kind of gave them. You know we're trying so hard to give them an easy life that sometimes they have a little trouble with.
Speaker 2:So we want to build resilience up. We want to build resilience up in our children and our grandchildren, and I think having them have a healthy attitude about death is one way we can do that.
Speaker 1:Well, do you know what? I think that's an amazing story to tell and to be living at the moment, which is lovely, and you obviously have not let these moments of grief, years of grief, really dampen you down. But you're just such an ebullient person, you know, it's lovely to see that you're out there and doing it for everybody else and it's such a good. Good message to put across, without a doubt, is to prepare everybody else for when we go, because you know I'm personally. I'll tell you a very short story is about a year ago.
Speaker 1:I was just about to go out in the evening I'll get a bit personal here and my, my wife, went down the road to this dinner party was going on, and so I'm just going to go to the loo and a dreadful thing happened. I discovered blood in my urine and in my other end as well, and I just stood there, having done end of life care for people for the last four years, and thought, right, this might be a journey, it might be a short one, it might be a long one, uh, but um, and I kind of there and then somehow reconciled that the end was coming. And then, when I saw my doctor a couple of days later he, he said have you been drinking beetroot juice? I went, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, what an idiot. And so you know, I've done all my reconciliation for no particular reason whatsoever. So I was really so heart, thank God for that, you know.
Speaker 1:So that's an interesting thing. But lots of things go through your mind is how do I prepare, how do I prepare my friends and family? So and there's a name for it too, it's called Bituria. Who knew? So listen, I want to thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. It's been really interesting, and if I ever win the lottery, I shall pop myself out to Rwanda. And if I ever win the lottery, I shall pop myself out to Rwanda, check out the libraries and maybe donate a few of our children's books, because I write kids' books as well, and so I'll get round to you some other time about that. But so, yeah, thank you once again and very best of luck with the next quarter, possibly even the next two quarters who can tell?
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know, my clock has ticked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I know that feeling, I know that feeling. Thank you very much, dr Kim Holmes.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you so much, Jason. This has been so much fun.
Speaker 1:It's been good, right, thank you and goodbye. Thank you.
