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TEN days before her death from ovarian cancer in March 2017, The New York Times published an article by children’s writer Amy Krouse Rosenthal titled: “You May Want To Marry My Husband”.
Struggling through the morphine haze that often caused her to drop her pen, the 51-year-old wrote a heartbreaking personal ad for her husband of 26 years.
Jason was, she said, “an easy man to fall in love with… a successful lawyer, wonderful father, sharp dresser, adventurous travel companion, handy around the house and a terrific cook”.
Although she yearned for more time with the father of her three children, she generously hoped that “the right person reads this, finds Jason, and another love story begins”.
Several years later, Jason has written his own account of the marriage and its aftermath.
Amy always said theirs was an ongoing “fairy-tale romance” and he concurs, although the relationship he describes occasionally reads as too good to be true.
The couple met on a blind date in July 1989. Amy – then a rising star in advertising – fell in love instantly. Jason – preoccupied by his law degree – took a little longer.
On their honeymoon in 1991, they made a list of marriage rules which set the tone for nearly three decades together: no TV dinners; keep our cupboards stocked with healthy food; whenever we sign something, we both sign; record our kids’ voices every year; keep sex fun.
Could that really be how they lived? It’s hard to imagine the busy professional couple having just wrestled three small kids to bed never bickering or slumping on to the sofa in front of trash TV with a blow-out takeaway.
Jason is much more interesting when he opens up about his life and grief beyond Amy’s death.
He’s brilliant on his unexpected panic attacks, withering about people who crossed the road to avoid his misery, and great on the importance of deep, male friendship.
Somehow, he says, “men have been labelled as unemotional… in institutions from the US military to our sporting arenas, and even in film and television, men are portrayed as rock-solid stoic types in the face of an emotional event.
“I have news for you: f*** that. If your wife dies, cry your eyes out… if you lose your family pet, your job, your marriage, or your mate, let it out! I bawled like a baby as my wife was wheeled out of our home on a gurney. I cried my eyes out often afterwards in my car when a familiar tune came on.”
The question we all want answered is: Has anyone filled the blank space Amy left at the end of her 2017 article?
Jason is understandably cautious, but he has met “a hazel-eyed twin” who changed his world.
“When she and I started going out together in public,” he says, “I was still apprehensive about being judged for enjoying myself with a woman who wasn’t Amy.”
But he says that his kids, friends and therapist all encouraged him to be happy – and that he is grateful for both the woman with whom he shared 26 blissful years and the one offering new possibilities.
He says that he now starts every day “with mindfulness and an open heart. Thank you Amy, for giving me that gift”.