TED2018 | April 2018
Jason B. Rosenthal:The journey through loss and grief
In her brutally honest, ironically funny and widely read meditation on death, "You May Want to Marry My Husband," the late author and filmmaker Amy Krouse Rosenthal gave her husband Jason very public permission to move on and find happiness. A year after her death, Jason offers candid insights on the often excruciating process of moving through and with loss - as well as some quiet wisdom for anyone else experiencing life-changing grief.
Transcript:(Also available in Portuguese,from Brazil)
There are three words that explain why I am here. They are "Amy Krouse Rosenthal."
At the end of Amy's life, hyped up on morphine and home in hospice, the "New York Times" published an article she wrote for the "Modern Love" column on March 3, 2017.
It was read worldwide by over five million people. The piece was unbearably sad, ironically funny and brutally honest. While it was certainly about our life together, the focus of the piece was me. It was called, "You May Want to Marry My Husband." It was a creative play on a personal ad for me. Amy quite literally left an empty space for me to fill with another love story.
Amy was my wife for half my life. She was my partner in raising three wonderful, now grown children, and really, she was my girl, you know? We had so much in common. We loved the same art, the same documentaries, the same music. Music was a huge part of our life together. And we shared the same values. We were in love, and our love grew stronger up until her last day.
Amy was a prolific author. In addition to two groundbreaking memoirs, she published over 30 children's books. Posthumously, the book she wrote with our daughter Paris, called "Dear Girl," reached the number one position on the "New York Times" bestseller list. She was a self-described tiny filmmaker. She was 5'1" and her films were not that long.
Her films exemplified her natural ability to gather people together. She was also a terrific public speaker, talking with children and adults of all ages all over the world.
Now, my story of grief is only unique in the sense of it being rather public. However, the grieving process itself was not my story alone. Amy gave me permission to move forward, and I'm so grateful for that. Now, just a little over a year into my new life, I've learned a few things. I'm here to share with you part of the process of moving forward through and with grief. But before I do that, I think it would be important to talk a little bit about the end of life, because it forms how I have been emotionally since then. Death is such a taboo subject, right?
Amy ate her last meal on January 9, 2017. She somehow lived an additional two months without solid food. Her doctors told us we could do hospice at home or in the hospital. They did not tell us that Amy would shrink to half her body weight, that she would never lay with her husband again, and that walking upstairs to our bedroom would soon feel like running a marathon. Home hospice does have an aura of being a beautiful environment to die in.
How great that you don't have the sounds of machines beeping and going on and off all the time, no disruptions for mandatory drug administration, home with your family to die.
We did our best to make those weeks as meaningful as we could. We talked often about death. Everybody knows it's going to happen to them, like, for sure, but being able to talk openly about it was liberating. We talked about subjects like parenting.
I asked Amy how I could be the best parent possible to our children in her absence. In those conversations, she gave me confidence by stressing what a great relationship I had with each one of them, and that I can do it. I know there will be many times where I wish she and I can make decisions together. We were always so in sync. May I be so audacious as to suggest that you have these conversations now, when healthy. Please don't wait.
As part of our hospice experience, we organized groups of visitors. How brave of Amy to receive them, even as she began her physical decline. We had a Krouse night, her parents and three siblings. Friends and family were next. Each told beautiful stories of Amy and of us. Amy made an immense impact on her loyal friends.
But home hospice is not so beautiful for the surviving family members. I want to get a little personal here and tell you that to this date, I have memories of those final weeks that haunt me. I remember walking backwards to the bathroom, assisting Amy with each step. I felt so strong. I'm not such a big guy, but my arms looked and felt so healthy compared to Amy's frail body.
And that body failed in our house. On March 13 of last year, my wife died of ovarian cancer in our bed. I carried her lifeless body down our stairs, through our dining room and our living room to a waiting gurney to have her body cremated. I will never get that image out of my head. If you know someone who has been through the hospice experience, acknowledge that.
Just say you heard this guy Jason talk about how tough it must be to have those memories and that you're there if they ever want to talk about it. They may not want to talk, but it's nice to connect with someone living each day with those lasting images. I know this sounds unbelievable, but I've never been asked that question.
Amy's essay caused me to experience grief in a public way.
Many of the readers who reached out to me wrote beautiful words of reflection. The scope of Amy's impact was deeper and richer than even us and her family knew. Some of the responses I received helped me with the intense grieving process because of their humor, like this email I received from a woman reader who read the article, declaring, "I will marry you when you are ready --
"provided you permanently stop drinking. No other conditions. I promise to outlive you. Thank you very much."
Now, I do like a good tequila, but that really is not my issue. Yet how could I say no to that proposal?
I laughed through the tears when I read this note from a family friend: "I remember Shabbat dinners at your home and Amy teaching me how to make cornbread croutons. Only Amy could find creativity in croutons."
On July 27, just a few months after Amy's death, my dad died of complications related to a decades-long battle with Parkinson's disease. I had to wonder: How much can the human condition handle? What makes us capable of dealing with this intense loss and yet carry on? Was this a test? Why my family and my amazing children? Looking for answers, I regret to say, is a lifelong mission, but the key to my being able to persevere is Amy's expressed and very public edict that I must go on.
Throughout this year, I have done just that. I have attempted to step out and seek the joy and the beauty that I know this life is capable of providing. But here's the reality: those family gatherings, attending weddings and events honoring Amy, as loving as they are, have all been very difficult to endure. People say I'm amazing. "How do you handle yourself that way during those times?" They say, "You do it with such grace." Well, guess what? I really am sad a lot of the time. I often feel like I'm kind of a mess, and I know these feelings apply to other surviving spouses, children, parents and other family members.
In Japanese Zen, there is a term "Shoji," which translates as "birth death." There is no separation between life and death other than a thin line that connects the two. Birth, or the joyous, wonderful, vital parts of life, and death, those things we want to get rid of, are said to be faced equally. In this new life that I find myself in, I am doing my best to embrace this concept as I move forward with grieving.
In the early months following Amy's death, though, I was sure that the feeling of despair would be ever-present, that it would be all-consuming.
Soon I was fortunate to receive some promising advice. Many members of the losing-a-spouse club reached out to me. One friend in particular who had also lost her life partner kept repeating, "Jason, you will find joy." I didn't even know what she was talking about. How was that possible? But because Amy gave me very public permission to also find happiness, I now have experienced joy from time to time. There it was, dancing the night away at an LCD Soundsystem concert, traveling with my brother and best friend or with a college buddy on a boys' trip to meet a group of great guys I never met before.
From observing that my deck had sun beating down on it on a cold day, stepping out in it, laying there, the warmth consuming my body. The joy comes from my three stunning children. There was my son Justin, texting me a picture of himself with an older gentleman with a massive, strong forearm and the caption, "I just met Popeye," with a huge grin on his face.
There was his brother Miles, walking to the train for his first day of work after graduating college, who stopped and looked back at me and asked, "What am I forgetting?" I assured him right away, "You are 100 percent ready. You got this." And my daughter Paris, walking together through Battersea Park in London, the leaves piled high, the sun glistening in the early morning on our way to yoga.
I would add that beauty is also there to discover, and I mean beauty of the wabi-sabi variety but beauty nonetheless. On the one hand, when I see something in this category, I want to say, "Amy, did you see that? Did you hear that? It's too beautiful for you not to share with me." On the other hand, I now experience these moments in an entirely new way. There was the beauty I found in music, like the moment in the newest Manchester Orchestra album, when the song "The Alien" seamlessly transitions into "The Sunshine," or the haunting beauty of Luke Sital-Singh's "Killing Me," whose chorus reads, "And it's killing me that you're not here with me. I'm living happily, but I'm feeling guilty." There is beauty in the simple moments that life has to offer, a way of seeing that world that was so much a part of Amy's DNA, like on my morning commute, looking at the sun reflecting off of Lake Michigan, or stopping and truly seeing how the light shines at different times of the day in the house we built together; even after a Chicago storm, noticing the fresh buildup of snow throughout the neighborhood; or peeking into my daughter's room as she's practicing the bass guitar.
Listen, I want to make it clear that I'm a very fortunate person. I have the most amazing family that loves and supports me. I have the resources for personal growth during my time of grief. But whether it's a divorce, losing a job you worked so hard at or having a family member die suddenly or of a slow-moving and painful death, I would like to offer you what I was given: a blank of sheet of paper. What will you do with your intentional empty space, with your fresh start?
Thank you.
MODERN LOVE
You May Want to Marry My Husband (1)
CreditBrian Rea
By Amy Krouse Rosenthal
March 3, 2017
Note: Amy Krouse Rosenthal died on March 13, 2017, 10 days after this essay was published.In June, 2018, her husband published this response.(*)
I have been trying to write this for a while, but the morphine and lack of juicy cheeseburgers (what has it been now, five weeks without real food?) have drained my energy and interfered with whatever prose prowess remains. Additionally, the intermittent micronaps that keep whisking me away midsentence are clearly not propelling my work forward as quickly as I would like. But they are, admittedly, a bit of trippy fun.
Still, I have to stick with it, because I’m facing a deadline, in this case, a pressing one. I need to say this (and say it right) while I have a) your attention, and b) a pulse.
I have been married to the most extraordinary man for 26 years. I was planning on at least another 26 together.
Want to hear a sick joke? A husband and wife walk into the emergency room in the late evening on Sept. 5, 2015. A few hours and tests later, the doctor clarifies that the unusual pain the wife is feeling on her right side isn’t the no-biggie appendicitis they suspected but rather ovarian cancer.
As the couple head home in the early morning of Sept. 6, somehow through the foggy shock of it all, they make the connection that today, the day they learned what had been festering, is also the day they would have officially kicked off their empty-nestering. The youngest of their three children had just left for college.
So many plans instantly went poof.
No trip with my husband and parents to South Africa. No reason, now, to apply for the Harvard Loeb Fellowship. No dream tour of Asia with my mother. No writers’ residencies at those wonderful schools in India, Vancouver, Jakarta.
No wonder the word cancer and cancel look so similar.
This is when we entered what I came to think of as Plan “Be,” existing only in the present. As for the future, allow me to introduce you to the gentleman of this article, Jason Brian Rosenthal.
He is an easy man to fall in love with. I did it in one day.
Let me explain: My father’s best friend since summer camp, “Uncle” John, had known Jason and me separately our whole lives, but Jason and I had never met. I went to college out east and took my first job in California. When I moved back home to Chicago, John — who thought Jason and I were perfect for each other — set us up on a blind date.
It was 1989. We were only 24. I had precisely zero expectations about this going anywhere. But when he knocked on the door of my little frame house, I thought, “Uh-oh, there is something highly likable about this person.”
By the end of dinner, I knew I wanted to marry him.
Jason? He knew a year later.
I have never been on Tinder, Bumble or eHarmony, but I’m going to create a general profile for Jason right here, based on my experience of coexisting in the same house with him for, like, 9,490 days.
First, the basics: He is 5-foot-10, 160 pounds, with salt-and-pepper hair and hazel eyes.
The following list of attributes is in no particular order because everything feels important to me in some way.
He is a sharp dresser. Our young adult sons, Justin and Miles, often borrow his clothes. Those who know him — or just happen to glance down at the gap between his dress slacks and dress shoes — know that he has a flair for fabulous socks. He is fit and enjoys keeping in shape.
If our home could speak, it would add that Jason is uncannily handy. On the subject of food — man, can he cook. After a long day, there is no sweeter joy than seeing him walk in the door, plop a grocery bag down on the counter, and woo me with olives and some yummy cheese he has procured before he gets to work on the evening’s meal.
Jason loves listening to live music; it’s our favorite thing to do together. I should also add that our 19-year-old daughter, Paris, would rather go to a concert with him than anyone else.
A Conversation Between Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Her Daughter (Podcast available on source article)
Ms. Rosenthal talks with her daughter Paris in July 2016, after learning her cancer had returned. Ms. Rosenthal passed away on March 13, 2017. This conversation was recorded for StoryCorps, an independently funded non-profit organization, in July 2016 in Chicago.
When I was working on my first memoir, I kept circling sections my editor wanted me to expand upon. She would say, “I’d like to see more of this character.”
Of course, I would agree — he was indeed a captivating character. But it was funny because she could have just said: “Jason. Let’s add more about Jason.”
He is an absolutely wonderful father. Ask anyone. See that guy on the corner? Go ahead and ask him; he’ll tell you. Jason is compassionate — and he can flip a pancake.
Jason paints. I love his artwork. I would call him an artist except for the law degree that keeps him at his downtown office most days from 9 to 5. Or at least it did before I got sick.
If you’re looking for a dreamy, let’s-go-for-it travel companion, Jason is your man. He also has an affinity for tiny things: taster spoons, little jars, a mini-sculpture of a couple sitting on a bench, which he presented to me as a reminder of how our family began.
Here is the kind of man Jason is: He showed up at our first pregnancy ultrasound with flowers. This is a man who, because he is always up early, surprises me every Sunday morning by making some kind of oddball smiley face out of items near the coffeepot: a spoon, a mug, a banana.
This is a man who emerges from the minimart or gas station and says, “Give me your palm.” And, voilà, a colorful gumball appears. (He knows I love all the flavors but white.)
My guess is you know enough about him now. So let’s swipe right.
Wait. Did I mention that he is incredibly handsome? I’m going to miss looking at that face of his.
If he sounds like a prince and our relationship seems like a fairy tale, it’s not too far off, except for all of the regular stuff that comes from two and a half decades of playing house together. And the part about me getting cancer. Blech.
In my most recent memoir (written entirely before my diagnosis), I invited readers to send in suggestions for matching tattoos, the idea being that author and reader would be bonded by ink.
I was totally serious about this and encouraged submitters to be serious as well. Hundreds poured in. A few weeks after publication in August, I heard from a 62-year-old librarian in Milwaukee named Paulette.
She suggested the word “more.” This was based on an essay in the book where I mention that “more” was my first spoken word (true). And now it may very well be my last (time shall tell).
In September, Paulette drove down to meet me at a Chicago tattoo parlor. She got hers (her very first) on her left wrist. I got mine on the underside of my left forearm, in my daughter’s handwriting. This was my second tattoo; the first is a small, lowercase “j” that has been on my ankle for 25 years. You can probably guess what it stands for. Jason has one too, but with more letters: “AKR.”
I want more time with Jason. I want more time with my children. I want more time sipping martinis at the Green Mill Jazz Club on Thursday nights. But that is not going to happen. I probably have only a few days left being a person on this planet. So why I am doing this?
I am wrapping this up on Valentine’s Day, and the most genuine, non-vase-oriented gift I can hope for is that the right person reads this, finds Jason, and another love story begins.
I’ll leave this intentional empty space below as a way of giving you two the fresh start you deserve.
With all my love, Amy
Amy Krouse Rosenthal is the author of 28 children’s picture books and the recent memoir “Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal.” She lives in Chicago.
To hear Modern Love: The Podcast, subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music. To read past Modern Love columns, click here. To contact Modern Love, email modernlove@nytimes.com.
A version of this article appears in print on March 5, 2017, on Page ST6 of the New York edition with the headline: You May Want to Marry My Husband.
(1) Versión en Español/Spanish version
Te recomiendo casarte con mi esposo
Por AMY KROUSE ROSENTHAL
4 de Marzo de 2017
Llevo un tiempo intentando escribir esto, pero la morfina y el no haber comido hamburguesas jugosas en un tiempo (creo que ya van cinco semanas sin comida de verdad) me han dejado sin energía y han interferido con lo que me queda de capacidad de prosa. Además, las siestas que me pegan cuando estoy a la mitad de escribir alguna oración claramente no han permitido que trabaje tan rápido como me gustaría hacerlo. Aunque, hay que admitirlo, durante esas siestas tengo algo de diversión fomentada por los medicamentos.
Pero tengo que terminarlo ya porque tengo una fecha límite, una muy cercana. Necesito decirlo, y hacerlo bien, mientras tengo tu atención y todavía tengo un pulso.
He estado casada con el hombre más maravilloso durante 26 años. Planeaba que fueran al menos 26 años más.
¿Quieren oír un chiste morboso? Una pareja casada llega a la sala de emergencias el 5 de septiembre de 2015. Unas horas y varios estudios después, el doctor les indica que el dolor inusual que siente la esposa en su costado derecho no es apendicitis, como pensaban, sino cáncer de ovario.
La pareja regresa a casa el 6 de septiembre, y descubre en medio de la conmoción que ese día que supieron lo que se avecina también es el día en el que empiezan su vida como aves de un nido vacío. La menor de sus tres hijos acaba de irse a la universidad.
Y tantos planes se desvanecen.
Ya no habría viaje con mi esposo y mis padres a Sudáfrica. Ya no hay razón para buscar la beca de Harvard Loeb, ni para hacer ese viaje soñado por Asia con mi madre. Para qué pensar en intercambios laborales en India, Vancouver o Yakarta.
No es coincidencia que las palabras cáncer y cancelar son tan similares.
Adoptamos entonces el plan alterno, que apodamos “ser”, para vivir el presente. Y respecto al futuro, quiero presentarles al protagonista de este artículo, Jason Brian Rosenthal.
Es fácil enamorarse de él. A mí me tomó un día.
Déjenme explicar: el mejor amigo de la infancia mi padre, el “tío” John, me conocía tanto a mí como a Jason desde que somos pequeños, aunque por separado, por lo que nunca nos habíamos conocido. Fui a la universidad en la Costa Este estadounidense y luego me mudé a California. Cuando regresé a Chicago, John —quien pensaba que Jason y yo éramos perfectos el uno para el otro– organizó una cita a ciegas.
Era 1989 y solo teníamos 24 años. Tenía exactamente cero expectativas de que la cita sería provechosa. Pero cuando tocó a la puerta de mi pequeña casa, pensé: “Oh, no, esta persona es muy simpática”.
Para cuando acabamos de cenar, me quería casar con él. Jason llegó a la misma conclusión, un año después.
Nunca he estado en Tinder, eHarmony ni nada así, pero ahora voy a crear un perfil general de Jason, hecho a partir de mi experiencia con él tras 9490 días de vivir en la misma casa.
Empecemos por lo básico: mide 1,78 metros, pesa 72 kilos, tiene ojos color avellana y cabello entrecano.
Ahora va una lista de sus atributos, en ningún orden en particular, porque todos me parecen importantes:
Se viste bien. Nuestros hijos —que son adultos jóvenes—, Justin y Miles, a veces le piden prestada su ropa. Los que lo conocen o quienes llegan a avistar el espacio entre sus pantalones de vestir y sus zapatos saben que tiene un don para usar calcetas fabulosas. Está en forma y disfruta de ejercitarse.
Si nuestro hogar hablara, agregaría que Jason es asombrosamente habilidoso. Cuando se trata de comida… ¡wow, este hombre sabe cocinar! Después de un largo día no hay mayor regocijo que verlo cruzar la puerta con una bolsa del supermercado en las manos, cuando me vuelve a conquistar con un aperitivo de aceitunas y algún queso que consiguió, en lo que cocina una cena.
A Jason le encanta escuchar música en vivo; es lo que más nos gusta hacer juntos. También debería de añadir que nuestra hija de 19 años, Paris, prefiere ir a un concierto con él que con cualquier otra persona.
Cuando escribía mi primer libro de memorias, mi editora tendía a dibujar círculos en varias secciones sobre las cuales quería que elaborara. Decía: “Quiero saber más sobre este personaje”.
Estoy de acuerdo, claro, era un personaje cautivador. Pero podría haber dicho solamente: “Jason. Escribe más sobre Jason”.
Es un gran padre. Pregúntenle a quien sea. ¿Ven a esa persona en la esquina? Pregúntenle a ella, sabrá responder. Jason es compasivo… y tiene el don de poder voltear los panqueques en el aire.
Jason pinta. Amo sus obras. Lo llamaría un artista excepto que tiene una maestría en Derecho, lo que significa que está en su oficina de 9:00 a 17:00 la mayoría de los días. O, al menos, ahí estaba antes de que me enfermara.
Si buscas a un acompañante de viajes de ensueño y con un espíritu entusiasta, Jason es ideal. También le gustan las baratijas pequeñas: cucharas para degustación, frasquitos o una escultura miniatura de una pareja sentada en una banca, que me regaló como un recordatorio de cómo empezó nuestra familia.
Ese es el tipo de hombre que es Jason: llegó al ultrasonido de nuestro primer embarazo con flores. Es el tipo de hombre que, ya que siempre se despierta temprano, me sorprende los domingos en la mañana al hacer caritas felices con algo que se encuentre cerca de la cafetera; una cuchara, una taza, un plátano.
Es el tipo de hombre que sale de alguna tienda de autoservicio o gasolinera y dice: “Dame la palma de tu mano” y, voilà, aparece una bola de chicle colorida. (Ya sabe que me encantan todos los sabores excepto el blanco).
Supongo que ya saben suficiente sobre él como para darle “sí” a su perfil.
Esperen. ¿Ya mencioné que es increíblemente guapo? Voy a extrañar ver su cara.
Si todo les suena a que es un príncipe y nuestra relación es salida de un cuento de hadas, no están muy equivocados, con excepción de todas las posibles peleas pequeñas que surgen cuando vives con alguien durante dos décadas y media. Ah, y excepto esa parte de la historia en la que me dio cáncer. ¡Puaj!
En mi libro de memorias más reciente (que escribí antes de que me diagnosticaran), invité a los lectores a enviar sugerencias para que nos hiciéramos el mismo tatuaje, con la idea de que el autor y el lector estarían así unidos por medio de la tinta.
Lo dije muy en serio y pedí que los lectores se lo tomaran en serio también. Llegaron cientos de propuestas. Unas semanas después de haber publicado el libro, en agosto, una bibliotecaria de 62 años de Milwaukee llamada Paulette envió su sugerencia:
La palabra “más”. En uno de los ensayos del libro mencionaba que esa fue la primera palabra que dije (lo cual es verdad). Y, ahora, puede que sea la última (solo el tiempo lo dirá).
En septiembre, invité a Paulette a que se reuniera conmigo en un estudio de tatuajes de Chicago. Ella se lo hizo (era su primero) en la muñeca izquierda y yo me hice el mío en el antebrazo izquierdo, con la caligrafía de mi hija. Es mi segundo tatuaje; el primero es una “J” que he tenido en el tobillo desde hace 25 años. Probablemente pueden adivinar a qué se refiere esa inicial. Jason también tiene uno, pero con más letras: “AKR”.
Quiero tener más tiempo con Jason. Quiero tener más tiempo con mis hijos. Quiero tener más tiempo para disfrutar de unos martinis los jueves en la noche en el Green Mill Jazz Club. Pero eso no va a suceder. Es probable que solo me queden algunos días como persona en este planeta. Entonces ¿por qué hago esto en ese tiempo?
Terminé de escribir esto en el Día de San Valentín, y el regalo más genuino (que no sea un frasquito) que puedo esperar darle es que la persona apropiada lea esto, busque a Jason y empiece otra historia de amor.
Así que dejaré este espacio en blanco a propósito, para que tú y él puedan tener el nuevo comienzo que merecen.
Con todo mi amor, Amy.
Amy Krouse Rosenthal era autora de 28 libros infantiles y del libro de memorias “Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal”. Vivía en Chicago.
Nota del editor: Amy falleció el 13 de marzo del 2017, diez días después de la publicación de este ensayo.
(*)
MODERN LOVE
My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me
She encouraged her husband to find new love after she was gone. A year later, he reflects on what her generosity has meant to him.
CreditBrian Rea
By Jason B. Rosenthal
June 15, 2018
I am that guy.
A little over a year ago, my wife, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, published a Modern Love essay called “You May Want to Marry My Husband.” At 51, Amy was dying from ovarian cancer. She wrote her essay in the form of a personal ad. It was more like a love letter to me.
Those words would be the final ones Amy published. She died 10 days later.
Amy couldn’t have known that her essay would afford me an opportunity to fill this same column with words of my own for Father’s Day, telling you what has happened since. I don’t pretend to have Amy’s extraordinary gift with words and wordplay, but here goes.
During our life together, Amy was a prolific writer, publishing children’s books, memoirs and articles. Knowing she had only a short time to live, she wanted to finish one last project. We were engaged then in home hospice, a seemingly beautiful way to deal with the end of life, where you care for your loved one in familiar surroundings, away from the hospital with its beeping machines and frequent disruptions.
I was posted up at the dining room table overlooking our living room, where Amy had established her workstation. From her spot on the couch, she worked away between micro-naps.
These brief moments of peace were induced by the morphine needed to control her symptoms. A tumor had created a complete bowel obstruction, making it impossible for her to eat solid food. She would flutter away on the keyboard, doze for a bit, then awake and repeat.
When Amy finished her essay, she gave it to me to read, as she had done with all of her writing. But this time was different. In her memoirs she had written about the children and me, but not like this. How was she able to combine such feelings of unbearable sadness, ironic humor and total honesty?
When the essay was published, Amy was too sick to appreciate it. As the international reaction became overwhelming, I was torn up thinking how she was missing the profound impact her words were having. The reach of Amy’s article — and of her greater body of work — was so much deeper and richer than I knew.
Letters poured in from around the world. They included notes of admiration, medical advice, commiseration and offers from women to meet me. I was too consumed with grief during Amy’s final days to engage with the responses.
It was strange having any attention directed at me right then, but the outpouring did make me appreciate the significance of her work.
When people ask me to describe myself, I always start with “dad,” yet I spent a great deal of my adult life being known as “Amy’s husband.” People knew of Amy and her writing, while I had lived in relative anonymity. I had no social media presence and my profession, a lawyer, did not cast me into public view.
After Amy died, I faced countless decisions in my new role as a single father. As in any marriage or union of two people with children, we had a natural division of labor. Not anymore. People often assumed Amy was disorganized because she had list upon list: scattered Post-it notes, scraps of paper and even messages scrawled on her hand. But she was one of the most organized people I have ever met.
There are aspects of everyday life I have taken on that I never gave much consideration to in the past. How did Amy hold everything together so seamlessly? I am capable of doing many things on my own, but two people can accomplish so much more together and also support each other through life’s ups and downs.
Many women took Amy up on her offer, sending me a range of messages — overly forward, funny, wise, moving, sincere. In a six-page handwritten letter, one woman marketed her automotive knowledge, apparently in an effort to woo me: “I do know how to check the radiator in the vehicle to see if it may need a tad of water before the engine blows up.”
While I do not know much about reality TV, there was also this touching letter submitted by the child of a single mother, who wrote: “I’d like to submit an application for my mom, like friends and family can do for participants on ‘The Bachelor.’”And I appreciated the sentiment and style of the woman who wrote this: “I have this image of queues of hopeful women at the Green Mill Jazz Club on Thursday nights. Single mothers, elegant divorcées, spinster aunts, bored housewives, daughters, wilting violets … all in anxious anticipation as to whether the shoe will fit, fit them alone, that the prince from the fairy tale is meant for them. That they are the right person.”
I couldn’t digest any of these messages at the time, but I have since found solace and even laughter in many of them. One thing I have come to understand, though, is what a gift Amy gave me by emphasizing that I had a long life to fill with joy, happiness and love. Her edict to fill my own empty space with a new story has given me permission to make the most out of my remaining time on this planet.
If I can convey a message I have learned from this bestowal, it would be this: Talk with your mate, your children and other loved ones about what you want for them when you are gone. By doing this, you give them liberty to live a full life and eventually find meaning again. There will be so much pain, and they will think of you daily. But they will carry on and make a new future, knowing you gave them permission and even encouragement to do so.
I want more time with Amy. I want more time picnicking and listening to music at Millennium Park. I want more Shabbat dinners with the five of us Rosies (as we Rosenthals are referred to by our family).
I would even gladly put up with Amy taking as much time as she wants to say goodbye to everyone at our family gatherings, as she always used to do, even after we had been there for hours, had a long drive home ahead of us and likely would see them again in a few days.
I wish I had more of all of those things, just as Amy had wished for more. But more wasn’t going to happen for her or us. Instead, as she described, we followed Plan “Be,” which was about being present in our lives because time was running short. So we did our best to live in the moment until we had no more moments left.
The cruelest irony of my life is that it took me losing my best friend, my wife of 26 years and the mother of my three children, to truly appreciate each and every day. I know that sounds like a cliché, and it is, but it’s true.
Amy continues to open doors for me, to affect my choices, to send me off into the world to make the most of it. Recently I gave a TED Talk on the end of life and my grieving process that I hope will help others — not something I ever pictured myself doing, but I’m grateful for the chance to connect with people in a similar position. And of course I am writing to you now only because of her.
I am now aware, in a way I wish I never had to learn, that loss is loss, whether it’s a divorce, losing a job, having a beloved pet die or enduring the death of a family member. In that respect, I am no different. But my wife gave me a gift at the end of her column when she left me that empty space, one I would like to offer you. A blank space to fill. The freedom and permission to write your own story.
Here is your empty space. What will you do with your own fresh start?
Humbly, Jason
________________________________________
Jason B. Rosenthal, who lives in Chicago, is the co-author of the forthcoming picture book “Dear Boy,” written with his daughter Paris.
A version of this article appears in print on June 17, 2018, on Page ST6 of the New York edition with the headline: My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me.
Some videos by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
TEDxWaterloo - Amy Krouse Rosenthal - 7 Notes on Life
Published on Mar 22, 2010
Amy Krouse Rosenthal is a person who likes to make things. She writes books for grown-ups, such as the alphabetized memoir "Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life" (named one of the top 10 memoirs of the decade); she writes books for children, such as "Little Pea", "Spoon", "Duck! Rabbit!", and "The Wonder Book"; she makes interactive films like "The Beckoning of Lovely", "The Money Tree", and "The Kindness Thought Bubble"; and she creates weekly missions for the universe to play along with via http://www.MissionAmyKR.com -- a project in conjunction with Chicago's NPR affiliate. Amy led the PUBLIC heART "Lost and Found Project" at TEDActive 2011. She resides online at http://whoisamy.com
TEDxSanDiego 2011 - Amy Krouse Rosenthal - The Crevices of Life
Published on Mar 29, 2012
Bestselling author and filmmaker Amy Krouse Rosenthal delves into the unsuspecting importance of "the crevices of life," those small, in-between pockets of time scattered throughout our day that tend to get overlooked and squandered...but which are actually central to creating the life you truly desire.
Amy Krouse Rosenthal - TEDxSMU 2012
Published on Dec 11, 2012
Amy is a person who likes to make things.
Some things she likes to make: Children's books. // Grown-up books. // Short videos. // Salads. // Connections with the universe. // Something out of nothing. // Wishes.
According to The New York Times, Amy's children's books "radiate fun the way tulips radiate spring: they are elegant and spirit-lifting." Her 20+ books for children include Little Pea, Spoon, Duck! Rabbit!, Plant a Kiss, Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons, and Wumbers.
As for her adult work, Amazon named Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life one of the top 10 memoirs of the decade.
Her YouTube videos include The Beckoning of Lovely, The Money Tree, Life is a Marathon and The Kindness Thought Bubble.
She has been a longtime contributor to Chicago's NPR affiliate WBEZ.
She has spoken at TEDxWaterloo (7 Notes on Life), TEDxSanDiego (The Crevices of Life), and on the TEDYou stage at TEDActive (Wandering).
The Interview Show | Daniel Biss, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, and Jen Lancaster
Published on Feb 10, 2017
Host Mark Bazer interviews Illinois State Senator Daniel Biss and authors Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Jen Lancaster. Find more interviews at interactive.wttw.com/interview-show
Amy Krouse Rosenthal ● A Simple Tribute
Published on Mar 13, 2017
Amy Krouse Rosenthal (29 April 1965 - 13 March 2017)
Author dying of cancer writes moving dating profile for her husband of 26 years
Published on Mar 6, 2017
Amy Krouse Rosenthal wrote a heartbreaking essay in The New York Times, urging someone to marry her husband after she passes away.
‘Marry My Husband’: Terminally Ill Author Pens Inspiring Essay | TODAY
Published on Mar 6, 2017
NBC’s national correspondent Kate Snow share the emotional, touching story of author Amy Krouse Rosenthal, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer over a year ago. Millions of people have been reading the tongue-in-cheek dating profile she wrote for her husband.
‘Marry My Husband’ Writer’s Daughter Opens Up About Her Late Mom’s Legacy (Exclusive) | TODAY
Published on Apr 28, 2017
“You May Want to Marry My Husband,” an essay by children’s author Amy Krouse Rosenthal, appeared in The New York Times just days before her death from ovarian cancer. NBC special anchor Maria Shriver sits down with her 20-year-old daughter Paris, who opens up about finishing her mother’s final project.
Beloved Author Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s Daughter Carries In Her Legacy | TODAY
Published on Jan 9, 2018
Last year, best-selling author Amy Krouse Rosenthal lost her battle with cancer just days after her powerful love letter to her husband went viral. Now her daughter Paris Rosenthal joins TODAY to talk about carrying on her mother’s legacy in a new children’s book, “Dear Girl.”
‘Marry My Husband’ Dad Jason Rosenthal Gives Emotional TED Talk About Grief | TODAY
Published on Jun 13, 2018
Jason Rosenthal, who was thrust into the national spotlight after his wife, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, wrote the celebrated column “You may want to marry my husband” just days before her death from cancer, is now using his grief to spread a message of hope. NBC News special anchor Maria Shriver spoke with him exclusively.
Amy Krouse Rosenthal's Thought Bubble: Kindness
Published on Apr 16, 2010
We teamed up with New York Times best-selling author Amy Krouse Rosenthal, to create this Thought Bubble on the power of kindness. Winner of Best Animation at the Peace On Earth Film Festival 2011.
Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal (Chronicle Books)
Published on Feb 6, 2009
A clever take on the age-old optical illusion: is it a duck or a rabbit? From the award-winning author of Little Pea, Little Hoot, and Little Oink comes Duck! Rabbit! Readers will find more than just Amy Krouse Rosenthal's signature humor here—there's also a subtle lesson for kids who don't know when to let go of an argument. Featuring illustrations by Tom Lichtenheld, Duck! Rabbit! is a smart, simple story that will make readers of all ages eager to take a side, Duck! Rabbit! makes it easy to agree on one thing—reading it again!
Sources: www.ted.com/www.youtube.com/www.nytimes.com
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