Franz Portele is 87 years old when he decides to write this book. His wife Katrin passed away a year and a half earlier after 60 years of marriage. The author recounts the beautiful times and the painful end of their life together. He wants to shape his new life and begins it with a strong will to live. Although he feels the increasing limitations of age, he aims to adapt to aging and being alone, hoping to succeed in this endeavor. The political events, which he has always been interested in, provide him with distraction, just as his memories of adventurous youth experiences offer him comfort.

Franz Portele, born in 1938 in the Sudetenland, grows up as a displaced person in Mottgers (district of Schlchtern) after the war. In Schlchtern, he attends high school and studies physics in Frankfurt and Berlin after graduating, where he earns his doctorate in 1969. He then transitions into the business world and works successfully in Germany and the USA. A constant and retreat for the family is their holiday apartment in Pongau/Austria, which they do not want to miss even while living in the USA. In retirement, they enjoy the Mediterranean lifestyle in Mallorca before moving to Bonn, closer to their doctors and children.