WOW Gal Angel
Amy Krouse Rosenthal
On March 3, 2017, at the age of 51, she announced that she was terminally ill with ovarian cancer, by way of a New York Times "Modern Love" essay. The essay was in the form of a dating profile for her husband Jason, to help him remarry after her death. She died ten days later.
When writer Claire Zulkey read her friend Amy Krouse Rosenthal's heart-wrenching New York Times column about being terminally ill and leaving behind her husband, Jason, she immediately found her own husband and gave him a hug.
The Modern Love column, written in the style of a dating profile extolling her partner's virtues, was the last piece of prose Rosenthal published before she died Monday at the age of 51 from ovarian cancer.
"I think that would have been a secondary or tertiary reaction that I think Amy would have liked — that people went and looked at their partners and loved ones and appreciated them a little bit more," Zulkey, Rosenthal's friend and sometimes collaborator, told As It Happens host Carol Off.
"I think a lot of people who knew her have been realizing and taking to heart her message of 'appreciate what you have now.'"
The column titled You May Want to Marry My Husband has been read more than 4.5 million times online, according to Rosenthal's Times obituary.
"It was a beautiful piece, and to think that she wrote it while she was struggling through the last couple weeks of her life," Zulkey said. "I know it wasn't easy for her."
Amy Krouse Rosenthal (April 29, 1965 – March 13, 2017) was an American author of both adult and children's books, a short film maker, and radio show host. She is best known for her memoir Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, her children's picture books, and the film project The Beckoning of Lovely. She was a prolific writer, publishing more than 30 children's books between 2005 and her death in 2017. She is the only author to have three children's books make the Best Children's Books for Family Literacy list in the same year.
Amy loved experimenting with different media, and blending the virtual and physical worlds. One of her favourite projects began with a YouTube video, "17 Things I Made", featuring books she had written, her three children and even a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Amy was an Angel on Earth who left too soon to continue her work from heaven for sure.
Resources & More Info: http://www.whoisamy.com/