Divorced and fifty-five, Janet Silver Ghent stood in tears at Jerusalem’s Western Wall in the winter of 1998 and pressed a paper between the cracks. “Please, God, find me a match,” she wrote. She should have marked it “Rush.” As 1999 dawned, she took matters into her own hands and penned a quirky personals ad—“Cute writer seeks leading man for possible lifetime drama”—luring Allen, a singing Silicon Valley engineer, to a tryst in a San Francisco toy store. They tapped out tunes with their toes on a giant mat piano.

Under their marriage canopy in 2000, he promised her “a merry chase,” and they camped among snorting wildebeests during Tanzania’s Great Migration. They climbed the peaks of Machu Picchu, and wherever they traveled, they sang.

At their wedding, Janet had vowed never to take Allen “for granite.” But when his lab tests uncovered two brutal conditions, she became the rock. For Janet and Allen, when things go awry—abroad or at home—there’s always a story, a song, or a book.