as told by Kathie Martin. Jim and Kathie I’m 84 now. At age 80 I became a widow. It never occurred to me that love would find me again. Then my good friend Barb died. Barb had been tied at the hip to her husband Jim. I heard he was in deep throes of grief, so I contacted him, though we had never met. His response was short, “Thanks for reaching out.” Some time later, I heard again, “Jim’s not doing well.” I reached out again, “I lost my husband three years ago. Perhaps we co

As told by Nikki Lastreto. I come from a fourth generation Italian American family in San Francisco and went to an old-fashioned, all-girls private Catholic school. The nuns were my heroines. I went to mass five times a week and collected statues of saints. The nuns were convinced I was going to be one of them. The head nun had favored me since I was a baby. They were ready for me. But I couldn’t avoid what was going on in the ‘60s. We got the San Francisco Chronicle with

as told by Joe Price The police were at our house every week breaking up fights between my mother and stepfather. Both had issues with drugs and alcohol. When I started high school, my sister, my guardian angel, told me I needed to go live with my dad, a police officer. He lived in Lake Forest, Illinois, a very wealthy community, the Beverly Hills of the Midwest. Starting over! That did give me a thirst to be financially prosperous. My father didn’t really know how to be a

as told by Rachel Radway In 2014, I was director of a global team at a Fortune 500 company in San Francisco and was totally burned out. Brain fog. Chronic pain. Not sleeping. And where had my sense of humor gone? I needed a big change. I wanted to do something special for my 45th birthday. I found a creative/spiritual journey in Peru—a place I’d always wanted to visit. While planning the trip, I realized I didn’t want to come back . I could actually move to Peru. I put my con