I NEVER THOUGHT I’d return to Costa Rica alone so many times, but I did because of my husband. You see, Costa Rica routinely appears on “happiest countries” lists because people living there have a strong sense of community and family, spend tons of time outdoors, eat a fresh and varied diet, and even have an unoffcial slogan, pura vida, which means “pure life.”
After I lost my otherwise healthy husband two months after his diagnosis of stage 4 kidney cancer, I needed pura vida—the idea that you should embrace, live, and enjoy each day, just as you are. In Costa Rica, in my grief, I felt a realness, a solidity, an understanding—maybe an acceptance—of the good and bad parts of life that I didn’t feel when I was in the States. Something in me started to shift.
I began looking at what other countries knew
