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We all want to know the back story. We want the story behind the façade; the true personalities of our favorite celebrities. We want to know the dirt. The details.We want to know whatever happened to, well, to everyone.

When I spoke to Karolyn Grimes last week, I listened to the rest of the story. Grimes was the little girl who played Zuzu Bailey in the classic film “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

My children don’t know many of my favorite characters from the classic movies I love, but they know Zuzu. Because they watch the movie with me every year, and they’ve listened to the gentle lesson the little girl helped teach us.

Grimes may have been a part of a wonderful movie, but she hasn’t lived a wonderful life. She’s seen her share of tragedy and hardship. She’s had her heart broken again and again.

But in our conversation, as she relayed her story and the paths that her experiences have opened to her, it occurred to me that she was still teaching the lesson George Bailey gave us so long ago: Life is all about second chances.

This week in Home

When Patrick Cancilla and Pam Wilde merged two households into Cancilla’s Dalton Gardens home, they didn’t just have to decide who got to keep the toaster and who brought the coffee maker. They also had to find a way to fit a new family and two home offices into the space.

The story of their creative solution is our cover feature.

Amy Klamper’s Urban Style page profiles a woman who found a way to bring all she loved about big-city living into her downtown Spokane loft, and garden guru Pat Munts introduces us to a few new neighbors on the landscape.

Each week in Home we bring you the story and the back story of people and places that play a big part of life in this area. And each week, as I read the work of our talented team of writers, I always think the same thing: Isn’t it wonderful?