A dying children’s book author penned a heartbreaking essay encouraging women to date her husband after she has passed on.
Amy Krouse Rosenthal, 51, of Chicago wrote the essay for the New York Times in what are her final moments. It is a tribute to her soon-to-be widower husband, Jason.
Doctors diagnosed Rosenthal with ovarian cancer two years ago, and she is a “few days” from death.
The essay talks about how the couple met and their 26 years of marriage. It also serves as a type of dating profile for 52-year-old Jason.
Rosenthal met Jason on a blind date set up by one of her father’s friends in 1989 when they were both 24 years old.
She said by the end of the first date she knew she wanted to get married.
“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.'” she wrote.
On September 5, 2015, she went to the emergency room with her husband to check out pain on her right side that she thought was appendicitis but turned out to be ovarian cancer.
That was the same day the couple sent their youngest child off to college.
The couple left the hospital the next day with a devastating cancer diagnosis, which put an end to many of their plans.
“No wonder the word cancer and cancel look so similar,” she wrote.
Rosenthal then set up a “general profile” of her husband, calling him a “sharp dresser,” “incredibly handsome,” and someone who can cook and loves listening to live music.
“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,” she wrote.
Rosenthal said she wants more time with her husband but knows she will not be able to have that. Therefore, she decided to do right by him one last time before she passes.
“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,” she wrote, closing out the piece.