Amy Krouse Rosenthal, who achieved viral fame and honor a couple of weeks earlier after she wrote an essay for The New York Times titled “You May Want to Marry My Husband,” died at 51 years old after suffering from cancer, The New York Times reports.
Rosenthal was an author of numerous children’s books, memoirs, and had spoken publicly about topics. Rosenthal succumbed to ovarian cancer after she was diagnosed in September two year ago, according to her agent, Amy Rennert.
Rosenthal, who was married to her husband, Jason, for nearly 26 years, wrote an essay about how much her husband deserves a second chance with another woman as soon as she passed away. The essay was featured in the Modern Love column and reached four and half million readers online.
Rosenthal wrote, “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 am I doing this?”
She continued, “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.”
Jason, the husband and subject of the essay, released a statement after the essay was published: “When I read her words for the first time, I was shocked at the beauty, slightly surprised at the incredible prose given her condition and, of course, emotionally ripped apart.”
Rosenthal graduated from Tufts University in 1987 and then spent nine years working for the ad agency, Foote, Cone, and Belding.
In one of her talks, Rosenthal told a person in the audience, “I tend to believe whatever you decide to look for you will find, whatever you beckon will eventually beckon you.”
According to New York Times, Amy Renee Krouse was born on April 29, 1965 in Chicago to publisher parents. Rosenthal wrote in a memoir, “I was simply born with a fondness for letters and language and predisposed to enjoy playing around with them and it.”
Rosenthal’s favorite line form literature was pulled from a play by Thornton Wilder titled “Our Town”: “Do any human being ever realize life while they live it?”
Rosenthal was survived by her parents, her husband, her two sons, Justin and Miles, her daughter Paris, and her siblings Katie, Beth, and Joe.
