Kim Hamer- 100 Acts of Love

Show Transcript

So welcome, Mark and welcome Kim. This is an interesting and important topic, so let's get started.

[00:01:58] Kim Hamer: Thank you so much [00:02:00] Bob. It's really good to he be here and it's really nice to meet you both

[00:02:03] bob_gatty: thank you, Kim. 

[00:02:05] Talk to us a little bit about why you're in this work. Why do you do what you do?

[00:02:09] Kim Hamer: When my husband was sick, my husband actually had cancer twice. And the first time I just noticed that so many people didn't know what to do. and I started to kinda wonder, also cuz people kept saying to me, if you need anything, let me know, Which we'll get into a little bit later is the least helpful thing you can say.

[00:02:29] And what I just started notice is so many people didn't know what to do and they were distraught about it, right? They were trying to figure out, they were making mistakes sometimes that sometimes they would figure out exactly what to do, but more often they didn't. And after my husband died, one of the things that I realize in just doing some research, there's a lot of information out there. If you have cancer, if it's your cancer, there's blogs. I Sometimes it's feels like almost too much information. But when it comes to support for those people we care about who have [00:03:00] cancer or dealing with loss, there was virtually no information out there.

[00:03:02] There was a few articles here and there. There wasn't this sort of big, book. And on top of it, one of the things I realized during my own experience was it's really easy to help. Before my husband had cancer, I thought helping meant that I had to volunteer to go to the grocery store every single Monday for the next 10 months, right? So I thought it was this big kind of leap of help. And what I discovered during my experience is that it isn't. It's the small little things that really make a difference. So I set out to let everybody know because if one in three of us is gonna get cancer, the other two need to know what to do to, how to care for, and how to love us up when that one person has cancer.

[00:03:45] bob_gatty: Sure.

[00:03:47] mark_m__bello: Kim I read in your book that. And I know it from experience that people have a lot of difficulty knowing what to say, knowing the right thing to say. Lot of difficulty [00:04:00] talking to a cancer victim or his family. Why do you suppose that ?

[00:04:03] Kim Hamer: I think the easiest answers that were just not trained, right? This is, 50 years ago people said cancer like this, they went cancer, right? It was this horrible disease that someone had that was almost shameful. And I think that we are American and in our Americanism. We really, were all about, we can do it.

[00:04:23] We got this. We're gonna march forward and just go and, we forget.

[00:04:28] mark_m__bello: the world.

[00:04:29] Kim Hamer: Exactly. Exactly. And in that mar, in that psyche that we all hold in some level is the inability to take a moment to stop and to reflect. We're scared of death, we're scared of illness because in that we become powerless.

[00:04:46] We become weak,. Which is a sin it feels like a sin to be weak, and we need help, which also feels like a sin to need. I'm often reminding people like Oprah didn't get where she is because she's, because she did it by herself. Bill [00:05:00] Gates, anybody who we admire, who's at the top didn't get there by themselves, but we celebrate them as if they did get there by themselves and that psyche really hurts us when it comes to wanting to connect with people who we care about, who are going through this difficulty. Because we wanna get in there and fix it, and we wanna of drop these kind of one bombs of stay strong and then be gone and feel like we've done a good job when really we haven't connected.

[00:05:25] bob_gatty: It's difficult to know really what to say. You find out a coworker or a close friend is dealing with a life threatening disease or about a situation, and you wanna be supportive. What? What should you say?

[00:05:47] Kim Hamer: I often like to answer that with what you shouldn't say and look at the anatomy of what you shouldn't say and then build up what you should say.

[00:05:55] mark_m__bello: Except to, that's my next question. What shouldn't you say? Go ahead and answer both

[00:05:59] Kim Hamer: Okay, [00:06:00] so what I often tell people is the worst thing you can say to somebody other than saying nothing is if you need anything, let me know. And it sounds like it is the most helpful question in the world, because in the moment, you do mean I will do anything for you. I care about you enough that I will do anything, but it's not helpful for three specific reason.

[00:06:22] First of all, what is anything, right? Anything is too big. When my husband was first diagnosed with cancer, I had a toddler who was in preschool who would get sick. Did anything mean that you were gonna take your freshly detailed car and go up to preschool and pick up my vomiting toddler? Was that anything, or did anything mean that you would be happy to drop off a bottle of wine so I could wind down at the end of the day. So anything is too big for anyone to wrap their head around. The second reason, it's not helpful is because you're going straight for the support, which is very [00:07:00] important.

[00:07:00] You're going straight for the action. But really, when you think about a crisis in your own life, you think about a bad day. You want to be recognized for what's happening in your life. So oftentimes, I tell people when you get home from work and you've had a really bad day or a really tough commute, you're in a bad mood, right?

[00:07:18] And it and you don't want someone to come in and fix the bad mood. What you wanna do is you wanna take a few minutes to complain about what happened, about the driver, about the person at work that's just driving you crazy. And then after you get that done, then you're willing and open to accepting some ideas.

[00:07:34] So it's the same thing, is you wanna make sure that you're acknowledging what the person is going through. Cancer sucks. Loss of someone you deeply care about is really hard, so that phrase doesn't recognize that. The third reason, it's not helpful is because you are now asking the person who's under incredible amount of duress to break apart their day and define the one thing [00:08:00]that you might be able or be willing to do.

[00:08:03] And the fourth reason is because now you're asking that person to call you up in their extremely vulnerable state in a country that is not very good at asking others for help to ask you to do the one thing that they really need, that you may not want and be able to do, and to risk the rejection, to risk hearing on the other end of the phone.

[00:08:26] Oh gosh. Okay. Okay. I think I can do that for you. When do you need it? And so all those reasons make that statement really not helpful. So when you take it apart, It doesn't address the moment, the connection, the feeling of, holy cow, this is happening to your life. And it doesn't specifically give them something to hold onto, something that you're willing to do for them.

[00:08:49] And so what I often say is there's kind of two things you can say. And unfortunately there's no like one phrase that everybody should use. It really depends on your [00:09:00] relationship and your comfort level of what's happening with their lives. But I often say, saying, I'm so sorry this is happening in your life right now.

[00:09:09] Or even saying, I don't even know. What to say I'm so shocked and saddened by this experience for you that I'm speechless. Like being speechless is good. My husband had cancer when he was just 40. That's that. It's a good time to be speechless because it, we think it's not supposed to happen to somebody that young.

[00:09:28] And then the second thing to do is to be specific. On what you can do, and this does require a little bit thinking on your part, is really understand what are you willing to do. So Bob, I might be like, Hey Bob, can you go to the store and get me? You might be like, Hey Kim, I can be your pasta person.

[00:09:48] And so if you are running outta a pasta, you realize you're outta a pasta, you're cooking the kids and you realize you've got no a pasta, call me. I will run to the store and get you pasta, and I'll even throw in some marinara sauce. And I know that [00:10:00] sounds silly, but the more specific you are, the more likely the person who's in crisis is going to remember what you said.

[00:10:08] And if you offer more than once, they will probably reach out to you at some point when they need the thing that you offer.

[00:10:14] bob_gatty: I don't think that's silly at all. I think that's a great suggestion because I was

[00:10:19] I was going ask you well, if I can't tell the person, let me know

[00:10:24] what I can do I

[00:10:26] Which is what the normal thought would be, at least for me. Let me know what I can do to help you. The idea of coming up with a suggestion like that I think is very helpful to the person who wants to be helped. We all want to help our friends and coworkers a situation like that and it can be uncomfortable and difficult to figure out exactly what to say and what to do.

[00:10:53] Kim Hamer: Exactly. And when you offer it, it has two benefits. One is you're letting the person know what you specifically are [00:11:00] willing to do, and two, it's another way that you're saying that you care about them. So even if they never take you up on the offer, they know that you care because you've offered. And I always say offer more than one.

[00:11:11] Because the person that you're d who's in the crisis doesn't, is not dealing with full deck of cards at the moment. And they may not remember what you've said. You are stating every time you offer, I care about you. I'm concerned about you. I wanna make your life just a little bit easier and here's how I wanna do it.

[00:11:27] So it's a really nice, being specific is very helpful.

[00:11:30] bob_gatty: Now Kim, your your business that you've developed is focused on helping companies, right? On helping companies 

[00:11:38] Kim Hamer: Yes.

[00:11:38] bob_gatty: deal with this kind of a situation. How can a leader balance the employees need for support and teams need to get work done at the same time? Cuz can see where that could be. Almost a conflict in a way.

[00:11:55] Kim Hamer: Yeah, it feels like a lot of conflict. I think a lot of managers are [00:12:00]really surprised when I say empathy and productivity actually do go together because they feel like a manager feels like this person now has cancer, and now I need to I don't know what to say and I feel really bad for them, but they're head of this project and I really want them to get them done, and I don't know what they can do.

[00:12:16] So they feel really uncomfortable. So what I've done is I've after being in HR for so many years, and know, my first job back into HR after my husband died, was working for a company whose president's wife had cancer, and the wife died.

[00:12:32] so I watched the company just Go crazy.

[00:12:35] Oh my gosh, what do I do? How do we manage this? And then they got no guidance. The employees, death has a long tail, grief has a long tail. And they're in the workforce and they're watching their boss blow up and then they're complaining to me. And so I'm trying to help them navigate this situation.

[00:12:52] So what I've done is I've come up with five steps that companies can follow that will allow them to, first of [00:13:00] all know what to say and how to really interact with the employee. You then take the time, I call it deal deal with the feel because we all have emotions around cancer or loss or health crisis, and it's really important that we take the time to understand what our emotions are about that as well as our own stereotypes. There's a lot of stereotypes about what it means to have cancer, and we have to take those and get them out of our head and onto paper. I always say, because otherwise they leak out of you and they hamper a manager's ability to help the employee and also to lead the team.

[00:13:38] And a great example of this is, let's go back to coming in f rom a drive, right? You want to tell your partner what it is, but maybe you don't and you're just pissy. And your partner, your person who's in the room with you, your cat, your dog, they know you're mad and you're trying to hide it, but they know you're angry and so that those emotions leak out of you and they affect how your team works.[00:14:00]

[00:14:00] The third thing is I tell team members, you, I tell managers, you have to do an assessment. You have to understand what your employee needs. You have to understand the laws around what you can and cannot say. Those are really important. You have to understand what's happening in your team over the next period of time that your employee's gonna be in treatment.

[00:14:17] You have to understand what your leadership capabilities are like, where are you the weakest? So you can. Once you assess that, then you can start to build the tools, and I call that section thoughtful action, and that includes, Coming up with communication plans. That includes sitting down with the employee who's dealing with this diagnosis, or this, grief or this, this issue that's happening in their family and sitting down with them and coming up with a work plan.

[00:14:44] It means understanding how you're gonna communicate to the team and to vendors and to customers sometimes about the issues that are happening that might slow your business down a minute. It also, just figuring out what you as a team or what you as a manager or what your [00:15:00]organization can offer.

[00:15:01] And then the last one is really about taking that long tail. So grief cancer diagnosis, sometimes hospitalizations, ill children, they have a long tail. They're not done in, they're, many of them are not done in three to six months and it's not wrapped up in a pretty bow. My husband.

[00:15:20] Was, and diagnosed himself from cancer in March of 2000 and I think it was 2007. Yep. 2007. But it took him four months to be able to be, go back to work full time because it was just all the chemo was still there was still side effects from that. We would lie in bed at nights and look at each other and go, What the hell just happened?

[00:15:43] What just happened. So it's taking that time to emotionally wrap your head around that you were fighting for your life. You know that my husband almost left the kids. Like all that stuff and his energy level. So we often need to think about that long tail. So that's the fist step of really considering [00:16:00] what that looks like for the future in your organization.

[00:16:03] And also figuring out what you as new organization want to do. Cuz in the end this all wraps up into wellbeing. And I think that's something that we forget. We think that wellbeing's a program that comes into the company and they, everyone does it. Yay. We're a wellbeing. And really, company employee wellbeing is more of a day to day.

[00:16:22] It's more a day to day on how you talk to managed, and work with and motivate your own employees to do the work that you need to get.

[00:16:28] mark_m__bello: The it brings up so many to narrow this down into one but, cancer I lost my dad to cancer. It's

[00:16:36] Terrible disease, so I feel your pain I've been there. But death in general in a workplace, you've got death where someone gets into an accident or, and is suddenly killed. You've got long term illnesses that have a substantial impact on a workforce and a [00:17:00] workplace whether it's sudden death or whether it's long term death, how does an employer or even a coworker better manage, for lack of a better way to say it, death in the workplace?

[00:17:11] Kim Hamer: That's a really hard question. So I think that when I talk about death in the workplace, there's two deaths, right? There's the death of the employee. Like you were just talking about and then there's the employee who's experienced a death. So for work I often say, it's what happens a lot of times is people will be very upset in the moment.

[00:17:31] It may take a few days, and then it seems the manager, like things have settled down and what the manager doesn't see is that person getting up from the, from their desk and walking away to the bathroom and crying or finding, that crying spot where no one will. Find them. What they don't see is the woman who has mascara in her car, cuz she cries all the way to work when she thinks about her coworker who's no longer there.

[00:17:57] And then reapplies, her, me, her makeup to look [00:18:00] good when she comes into the office. So I think and then they see, then they'll see people's productivity dip and they wonder why someone who's normally really good with grammars' making all these mistakes or, someone who's normally doing something really well is all of a sudden not doing it very well, or just showing these spaces of error. So I often advise companies to actually have their own memorial service. Within the organization, many times companies I was at a company where someone's, where a coworker's father died and the company hired a bus to take everyone to the service.

[00:18:34] It was really sweet, know, so you could get on the bus. You didn't have to worry about driving. Everybody went. You went as an organization. You showed up. The people in the, the spouse of the person who died, or the partner or the person who died feels really loved and cared for.

[00:18:45] Because here comes, 25 people from the organization. But for the people in the organization, it's often not enough because they're grieving the loss of a work person. And, Memorial services are about the life of that person. [00:19:00] So I recommend that people have, that You hold your own memorial service in the organization and, you allow people the time to, to, to to let go of those memories and to grieve those memories.

[00:19:12] The other thing is you have to model it.. So it's okay for you to be in a meeting and something comes up that this person used to do and you start to cry and it's okay for the, to say, Hold on, I just need a second. I just really thought about him right now and I just need a second.

[00:19:28] Or it's, even though sometimes you get angry, I think that's the other side of grief that we don't think about is people get pissed. Like it's just pisses you off, someone you care about, died and so sometimes that anger comes out and it's okay to just say, You know what? I'm really pissed off right now that this person died.

[00:19:46] I really liked her and I really wish you were here because this is something she'd be really good at. So I think that's one of the ways that you can do it. There's lots of different ways. And then there's the employee who's lost, right? And that's the employee who you have to, [00:20:00] It's hard because grief doesn't show grief isn't a bald head and they look normal, but they're not.

[00:20:07] And that's where a work plan comes into place because they're just not gonna be able to grief messes with your brain. They're just not gonna be able to do the work at the level they did before their person died. And you have to give them the time to ramp up to that level. Does that answer your question?

[00:20:21] mark_m__bello: Yeah.

[00:20:23] bob_gatty: Yeah,

[00:20:24] mark_m__bello: Yeah.

[00:20:24] bob_gatty: ask you how a manager can support an employee who was grieving, but think you covered that pretty well. I, I just had, I mar I marvel the fact that. You've turned this horrible experience that you went through when you were so young into this business. How how long did it take you to come up with that idea and get to the point where you could do it.

[00:20:53] Kim Hamer: I wrote the book six years after my husband died, [00:21:00] and I did it in 17 minutes a day. because I couldn't write for any longer than that. It was really painful for me. But I wanted to get these tips out on paper and then, it took another it took another six years for me to really, I went back into the workforce, went back into hr started seeing all this stuff and I kept thinking someone's doing something.

[00:21:25] There's gotta be a management course that answers these questions. And I would, look, I've been through, a lot of management courses on LinkedIn learning. I, looked at the AMA and there was no one out there talking about. These situations and how to manage it was bring in a grief counselor.

[00:21:41] This is what grief will look like for your people. There's a lot of information for people who have cancer, who are working and what their rights are. So it, it took a while for me to really have the courage to do it. And to say, okay, to put my, take my flag in the ground. So honestly, my husband's been dead for [00:22:00] 13 years and it is really this year, 2022, where I'm so in it and so grounded in it, and so ready to move forward doing this.

[00:22:11] bob_gatty: Wow.

[00:22:12] mark_m__bello: But you don't look a day over 30. I don't understand it

[00:22:13] all kidding aside, this is not a topic to joke about but.

[00:22:17] bob_gatty: No.

[00:22:17] mark_m__bello: We're we're living longer. Some

[00:22:20] Kim Hamer: yes.

[00:22:20] mark_m__bello: obviously have the misfortune, if not, but these kinds of issues are going to be dealt with in the workplace, perhaps early in someone's life, later in someone's life. I would presume, and correct me if I'm wrong, I would presume that there's a. Substantial number of people who are diagnosed with cancer in their prior working years. Correct.

[00:22:45] Kim Hamer: 46% of those who are diagnosed with cancer are between the ages of 25 and 64. Those are, You're exactly right. Those are prime working years.

[00:22:56] mark_m__bello: So what impact does that have on the morale of a workplace, and what steps [00:23:00] can a company to minimize the impact?

[00:23:03] Kim Hamer: That is a really good question. I think it's, and that, that status just for cancer we're talking all different stats for accidents and hospitalizations and for, the cancer of your partner or your child that's not even included in those numbers, I think.

[00:23:18] This kind of goes along with this big push right now, right?

[00:23:21] We came out of Covid and all of a sudden, not all of a sudden, but mental health and employee wellbeing have hit a fever pitch right now. Employees are, the great resignation happened even now when supposedly we might be going into recession. People are ju, there aren't enough people.

[00:23:38] That were the jobs that we have. So companies do need to start to think about how do we keep our employees engaged? And one of the ways that they, one of the things that a lot of people, a lot of new employees are saying is they want to be in a company that has a heart and has some type of purpose and.

[00:23:56] The company doesn't have to be a company that's focused on [00:24:00] recycling gum wrappers, right? It could be ibm and if their manager has a heart and has a purpose, really can bring people together, then that will help. Then this is the type of program that the company needs to think about.

[00:24:13] Because right now we're organizations are becoming more and more responsible. Like we're filling the hole for things that our society used to do for us. So there used to be the Elks Club and Shriners and there used to be all these clubs where men used to be able to go and talk to other men.

[00:24:31] There used to be more churches and we used to live more kind of, in, in small villages. So we had that support. We don't have that as much anymore, and so organizations unfortunately are gonna have to fill that hole to help people live better, healthier, longer lives and to help them benefit the organization.

[00:24:50] So it's going to continue to have a huge impact on engagement and on morale. And ultimately, when you look at the [00:25:00] numbers of engagement and the numbers of, for morale and trust of a manager, it affects the productivity and that eventually affects the revenue of an organization. I think companies need to start really looking at that that taking care of their employees on their human side will ultimately benefit them long term.

[00:25:18] That they just need to know how to do it. It's not a one off program that you throw into the organization and go, Woo, we're doing wellbeing. Yay for us.

[00:25:25] Yeah.

[00:25:27] bob_gatty: So you have you have an employee who. Is diagnosed with cancer. Now does that automatically just coming to work? I think most people continue to work, right?

[00:25:38] So if

[00:25:39] Kim Hamer: Yeah.

[00:25:39] mark_m__bello: they do.

[00:25:41] bob_gatty: now, the,

[00:25:43] the manager has to find a way to support that individual and still maintain whatever level of productivity. that individual can provide, correct?

[00:25:53] Kim Hamer: Yes. Yeah. It's, it's a, that's where that work plan comes into place is having those honest conversations with [00:26:00] the employee. And the thing is, Bob it's tricky because we have laws that protect the employees, protect the information that the employee. Can share. So the employee doesn't even have to tell their manager they have cancer.

[00:26:12] They can just say, I need half a day on Thursday and all day Friday off for something. It the answer to that question is tricky because it all depends on the relationship with the employee and the manager. It depends on what HR knows and does. It depends on on how much the employee has revealed.

[00:26:31] So it's just really understanding those things. And keeping in mind the laws. There's a HIPAA law which basically says a manager if I come to you, Bob, and say I have cancer, you cannot go to Mark and say, Oh my God, you hear Kim has cancer. That's, And then Mark comes to me and says, Oh my God, I'm so sorry you have cancer.

[00:26:47] And I'm like, Wait a minute. I told you. And ask you not to tell anyone, and now you're telling everybody, or I didn't even give you permission, and now you're telling everybody that can get a company into trouble. So it's

[00:26:58] mark_m__bello: was gonna say, Bob the [00:27:00] as the lawyer in the room, not just HIPPA, but if someone has cancer or some kind of disease, they have to be accommodated

[00:27:09] Perform the work. So you've got this two edge sword, both HIPAA and,

[00:27:14] Kim Hamer: the 

[00:27:15] mark_m__bello: I, the ada.

[00:27:17] Kim Hamer: Yep.

[00:27:17] mark_m__bello: there's that.

[00:27:17] There's that as well.

[00:27:19] Kim Hamer: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then the word accommodations is very vague and it really depends on the size of the company, how much accommodations do they need. So there's a reasonable Exactly. Exactly. Quotes. Exactly. So there's a lot of different pieces here that an organization needs to think about.

[00:27:37] It's not it's not just, Oh, anyone who has cancer, this is how we're going to treat it moving forward.

[00:27:44] mark_m__bello: Not to mention that not every, not everybody's the same.

[00:27:48] Kim Hamer: Exactly.

[00:27:48] mark_m__bello: Some people's cancer is worse than other people's. Some people's reaction to cancer is worse than other people's reactions, so

[00:27:55] there's no one size fits all. That's for sure.

[00:27:57] Kim Hamer: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[00:27:59] bob_gatty: so Kim, [00:28:00] exactly, what does your company do to help companies deal with all of this?

[00:28:05] Kim Hamer: I do like I, I mentioned earlier that five step process. So what I do is there's several different packages a company can order. So the first one is they have a do it yourself. I have a do it yourself program. There's videos, guidebooks. Throw in a few q and a times with the managers and with HR teams.

[00:28:21] So that's for the organization that's you know what, we can, we're gonna try to do this ourselves and manage it. I have it do it with you. Program where I come in and I work very closely with the team. So it could be the man, the team could be any group of people, it can be the manager, it can be the manager and the employee.

[00:28:38] It could be the manager of the employee and team, it could be the HR team as well. So I work alongside them and. We walk through those five steps very carefully and we come back and we revisit, and then I have a do it for you where myself and my team come in and we manage the whole process for you.

[00:28:56] Of course, checking in and making sure that everything is, along [00:29:00] the lines and fits within the culture of the organization. But we draw off the communication plans. We draw up the work plans. After interviewing the employees, we look at, what are the project. Team is coming up. It has to meet over the next six months.

[00:29:14] We come up with, we talk to the employee and come up with some ways that they can be involved in those projects. We understand what their, how involved they can be, what their treatment, what their side effects of their treatment will be. So we go really deep. So those are the three levels that, that we, that I offer in my organization.

[00:29:30] bob_gatty: What is the name of your organization?

[00:29:32] Kim Hamer: It's actually the same name as my book right now. It's 100 acts of Love.

[00:29:36] bob_gatty: Okay,

[00:29:37] mark_m__bello: What a coincidence? 

[00:29:38] Kim Hamer: know. Isn't that wild?

[00:29:40] bob_gatty: Who'da thunk it?. 

[00:29:41] Kim Hamer: I know Who thunk it.

[00:29:42] And, Mark. I did wanna say something. You said something that like it's not a laughing matter. And one of the things that I tell people, I had a friend. When my husband died and she would call and leave a message on the answering machine, yes, it was that long ago that there was an actual machine.

[00:29:56] You all remember those days? And she would leave a [00:30:00] message, a joke on my answering machine every Wednesday, and there were some days, especially early on, it was the only time I actually heard myself laugh. And so if you are the person who you and the coworker are, just the coworker thinks you're really funny and you're always laughing together, their diagnosis or their loss, doesn't mean that you stop doing that.

[00:30:21] You may be that funny person for them, and that might be absolutely fantastic, and that's exactly what they need. So I did wanna kinda say, death is. It's borderline humor, right? You have to be careful of who you make the jokes with and what you make them with. But usually the person who's dealing with loss does find some humor in it, and usually,

[00:30:42] mark_m__bello: your, there's an expectation, you sudden, if you suddenly change your personality, that's not necessarily a positive thing to the person who's grieving. So I agree. I agree with you a thousand percent.

[00:30:53] Kim Hamer: Exactly. Yeah.

[00:30:54] bob_gatty: Unless it was you changed your personality, Mark, 

[00:30:56] mark_m__bello: getting me to stop being a buffoon is very hard. 

[00:30:59] bob_gatty: Okay.

[00:30:59] mark_m__bello: [00:31:00] I, wanna ask you, I wanna ask you a question about justice. my, my podcast Justice Counts ask these questions in a legal setting, I often say I'm on the podcast and off there, there's justice and injustice in a lot of different settings, and it strikes me that getting a terminal disease, one that causes you to suffer the way cancer does. And I mentioned my father, I also lost an 18 year old nephew to cancer and watched him something that no one would wanna see. It's just awful. How does a cancer victim or his family cope with the injustice of it all? 

[00:31:43] Kim Hamer: Yeah.

[00:31:43] mark_m__bello: How did I get the disease and everybody else is healthy? Why couldn't I buck the odds? Does that creep into your thinking at all? Why am I so unlucky? Why is it, why me?

[00:31:54] Kim Hamer: First of all, I love that you asked that question. Second of all, I'm I, I. I didn't say this [00:32:00] when you told me about your father, but I'm so sorry about your dad and your nephew. That's just a horrible thing to watch. And then to watch your siblings having to deal with that is, is really painful.

[00:32:13] mark_m__bello: My baby sister.

[00:32:14] Kim Hamer: yeah. Yeah. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I remember listening to an interview with Arthur Ash, remember his African American tennis player in the seventies, and he got AIDS and someone asked him and said, Do you ever ask why me? And he said, I never asked why me when I was winning tournaments and doing what I was doing, I can't ask why me now.

[00:32:36] And for me, I don't think, I honestly don't remember saying to myself, Why is this happening to me? I just. I think I, I said a lot when with the kids, because my husband was a great father. He was an incredible father. And I remember thinking there are a lot of crappy fathers out there who don't show up for their children, who don't [00:33:00] care who you know, and why couldn't it be one of them?

[00:33:02] Why does it have to be him?

[00:33:04] bob_gatty: sure.

[00:33:04] Kim Hamer: so I think that's the only time I ever thought that, in thinking about my kids. This is my journey and. I can't spend the time feeling like wishing that this hadn't been my journey, cuz it is my journey. And so the way I see it is my job and the main driver of what I do is.

[00:33:29] I'm not here because I'm super strong or brave or courageous and got through this horrible tragedy.

[00:33:35] mark_m__bello: But you are.

[00:33:37] Kim Hamer: no but I'm here because of the hundreds of acts of love that people did for us. I'm here because every single time, because all these people showed up in our doorstep with lasagna to the point where my kids were like, Mom, no more lasagna.

[00:33:51] We're not eating anymore. Lasagna ever again. I'm here Because people picked up my kids after school and said, We're not bringing him home till nine [00:34:00] o'clock. We're gonna take him to dinner in a movie. I'm here because my husband's college basketball. Teammates came, and the coach drove, flew cross country to spend 24 hours with him in a hotel room.

[00:34:13] He was so sick at this point. He died like three weeks afterwards. That's why I'm here, and I'm here because I want people to know everything that they do. Really matters. And it doesn't have to be the big stuff, right? It's the card I got with $10 in it from an anonymous person who've been reading my blog and who said, I don't know what to do for you.

[00:34:38] Here's $10. I hope that it will help. I'm sorry that it's so small. Like she took the time to do that and my kids know what it's like. To be supported by a community and they have now gone out and shown other people how to show up for those who are dealing with this. So I want people to [00:35:00] step into their own matterness, their own, you may. That guy Bob, at the, or let's call him Max, you know who you see every other day? You don't really know him. You know he works in the IT department and you're a marketing and you really like him, and you just have this really great. Banter and you just found out his wife died and you're Oh my God, what do I do?

[00:35:22] But I don't know him well enough. It's I want you to know that your relationship with Mark is imp or Alex is important enough for you to walk up to him and say, I'm so sorry. I get you. I, you can tell I'm really passionate about this. That's what I want people to know is to, It takes courage to show up, but that showing up is so important.

[00:35:43] It has so much benefit for the person who's in.

[00:35:46] mark_m__bello: So,

[00:35:47] to the millions and millions of our listeners, what. What would be the most important takeaway that they should get from today's podcast?[00:36:00] What's the most important lesson can learn from you?

[00:36:05] Kim Hamer: Have courage and show up

[00:36:06] mark_m__bello: Be there..

[00:36:08] Kim Hamer: Be there.

[00:36:09] bob_gatty: Okay.

[00:36:11] Kim Hamer: This isn't the time to worry about what your hair looks like, whether or not you need to lose 10 pounds and whether the words are gonna come out right out of your mouth. This is the time to just show up and go, I don't know what to say. I'm gonna figure out how to help you. I just wanna say I'm sorry.

[00:36:30] that takes courage, but have courage and.

[00:36:33] bob_gatty: Okay. I thank you so much for being with us, Kim. It's been a fabulous conversation and I know Mark shares that right. Mark.

[00:36:46] mark_m__bello: Yes. You, I was, I thought you were gonna say, despite Mark being here 

[00:36:49] bob_gatty: I'm not gonna give you any more jabs. I'm not gonna jab you anymore. You're my buddy. We've been

[00:36:56] mark_m__bello: We've been,

[00:36:57] bob_gatty: a while now, Mark and I Kim, it's been great [00:37:00] and thank

[00:37:00] mark_m__bello: Thank you so much.

[00:37:01] And everybody listening to this should buy this book. It's a wonderful book.

[00:37:06] Kim Hamer: Oh, thank you, Mark. Thank you. I, one last thing about it is I did write it cuz I hate reading paragraphs and paragraphs to find that one point. So I did design it in a way that a person can grab it, open it up, go, oh, be her bathroom stalker, Okay, I'm gonna go out and buy toilet paper and toothpaste and, and deodorant and make sure she's on, She has it.

[00:37:25] I bought it in a way someone could pick it up and just read one tip, run, put it down, and go do that in one thing. thank you.

[00:37:31] bob_gatty: great.