Produced by the I-Lab at WB-U-R, Boston.

Welcome to Kind World.

I'm Andrea Aswaje.

And I'm Yasminammer.

So Andrea, we were just having this really interesting conversation ahead of this week's story.

We were talking about thoughts versus beliefs.

Yeah, and I know this is going to sound a little new-agee, but stick with me.

We have hundreds of thoughts every day, but we only really accept a few of them as true, and then we add value and emotion to them,

and that's what becomes our beliefs.

And the problem with that is when we need to change a belief.

Yeah, exactly, because they're so hard to change because of the emotional attachment that you've mentioned.

You know, and that's actually what this story is about. Sarah Cunningham was born and raised in Oklahoma City. She grew up in a working class family with four brothers and sisters.

She was the social butterfly of the family, or as her mother liked to call her, the goose.

And I think she knew that I just had this knack of sticking my nose in everyone's business.

I always wanted to know if everyone was all right, where everybody was.

Still, she dreamt of the day she would one day leave Oklahoma behind for some place bigger, less landlocked, and with more people, like maybe California.

I remember in my teens begging my mother to not let me be buried in Oklahoma. But as I've grown older I've

grown to just really appreciate the city, the sense of community here. That sense of

community kept the now 55 year old Sarah. of community that

kept the now 55 year old Sarah in Oklahoma

when she married at 22 and raised her own family.

She wanted her two boys,

...