My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me

by Jason B. Rosenthal

  Oh, and also, that tilt of the head with a furrowed brow, or a slight frown with a little headshake—uh-uh. Please don’t do that. I know you’re sad. I know you feel badly for me and Amy and our family. But pity is the last thing we need.

  One close friend of mine texted Grateful Dead lyrics to me every week, all of them on the theme of the eternal nature of deep love. “You know my love will not fade away” was a regular. Such a simple, powerful way to connect with a friend who just needs the feel of a familiar hand on their shoulder.

  A high school friend wrote me a note in which he confessed that he had no idea what to say, and yet said it beautifully: “Know that I don’t write this kind of letter often. But I have learned not to doubt myself (or buy schmaltzy Hallmark sympathy cards). I think people worry about what to say to someone when they have lost someone dear in their life. . . . Amy seems like she would have said just write what you want to and be real. That’s what I hope I’ve done here.” Amen, brother, you definitely did. I could go on, but I think you get it.

  One of our friends, Brian, showed up every Saturday morning while Amy was in hospice, always just to drop off three yellow items. Amy’s connection to the color yellow was especially illustrated in The Beckoning of Lovely, a project of community and connectedness you can find on YouTube, where Amy entered Millennium Park carrying a yellow umbrella, which became her legacy symbol. Brian’s weekly yellow gifts ranged from blow-up plastic duckies to balloons to mustard to anything else he could find on a thoughtful search through the dollar store. He never expected any kind of reciprocation. He never asked to see Amy, or expected to, but I was always the beneficiary of a bear hug if I was available when he stopped by.

  One of my sweet nieces sent me simple postcards every once in a while, just to stay connected through our mutual heartbreak and let me know she was thinking about me.

  And here’s a really easy, affordable way to offer comfort and support to a friend who’s in the process of losing a loved one, and maybe even give them a little smile. I recently attended a conference where a woman named Emily McDowell spoke about her company, which, among other things, really fills a void in the greeting card industry. They create cards for those moments when you don’t have the first clue what to say but don’t want to thoroughly nauseate yourself and the person receiving it. “There is no good card for this. I am so sorry” and “Please let me be the first to punch the next person who tells you everything happens for a reason” are two of my favorites.

  Now that’s more like it.

  Whatever tough moments and reactions we encountered along the way, there was no doubt that in-home hospice was the right decision for us, particularly because of how we were able to create a warm and comfortable space for Amy. No one has ever used the simile “as beautiful as a hospital room,” which is why we chose to make the home hospice experience as beautiful as it could possibly be. If you ever find yourself in the same position, take it from me, it makes a difference. Knowing the story is ending soon makes every word on those final pages that much more important, after all.

  We organized people into groups of visitors, to keep Amy from being overwhelmed at any given time. We had a “Krouse Night” with her parents and three siblings. They sang their family song, and weak as she was, Amy joined in. On a separate night, loving, loyal, lifelong friends of Amy’s came and regaled us with stories about her and us, from her high school years to her nervous anticipation about my calling her after our first date.

  Amy and I had always shared an almost rabid love of music, and we had a variety of musicians come to our house and play for her. World-renowned blues guitarist and friend Dave Specter performed a stunning rendition of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” Classical musicians serenaded her with stringed-instrument arrangements. A pianist with an angelic voice came every week, having learned the words and music of favorite songs I’d requested. Every one of these performances was weighted with meaning—not just for us but unexpectedly for the performers as well. Every one of those generous, gifted people told me later that performing for us was one of the most meaningful gigs they’d ever played.

  For some reason, I became insistent that our home and lives be infused with candles. Their glow is ethereal, obviously, filling a room with an alive, flickering light that’s always changing. Candles of various sizes also seemed to me to represent the uniqueness of the human form. The different shapes, sizes, fragrances, wicks burning with their own unique intensities, the inevitability of their burning out, all became icons of humanity and its frailty. Yes, I was witnessing this frailty every minute of every day, right before my eyes, but the candles gave it a certain grace and elegance that spoke to me. Being at home for long stretches of time, I started making candles of my own. Soon our family room and living room became a Rosenthal chandlery. Any container would do—an old soup can stripped of its label, a mason jar, an old jelly jar, existing candleholders that had burned all the way down—you name it, it was a candidate for the next homemade candle. It became a creative outlet in an otherwise dark time, something I could do when it felt as if there were so many things I couldn’t, no matter how desperately I wanted to.

  Then along came Valentine’s Day. To celebrate us, and all that “us” meant, on this Hallmark-manufactured day, I peppered the house with love notes. I took blank sheets of music paper, filled pages of it with the lyrics to some well-known as well as favorite love songs, and posted them all over the house. I know her perception of what was going on around her was getting dim, but I’m still certain Amy saw them all and felt them in that infinite part of her that understood everything.

  9

  I’m That Guy

  There were signs and signals,

  even if they couldn’t read them yet.

  Perhaps three years ago

  or just last Tuesday

  a certain leaf fluttered

  from one shoulder to another?

  Something was dropped and then picked up.

  Who knows, maybe the ball that vanished

  into childhood’s thicket?

  —Wisława Szymborska

  Of course, I knew Amy had been spending a lot of time writing on her laptop, and I knew that whatever it was, she was fiercely determined to finish it. But in my wildest dreams, I never imagined this, published in the March 3, 2017, issue of the New York Times:

  You May Want to Marry My Husband

  by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

  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.

  Illustration by Brian Rea.

  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-nesting. 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.

  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 mini mart 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 am I 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

  When I first read Amy’s brilliant piece, I was blown away by the prose. I felt humbled that the last project she worked on, literally from her deathbed, was about me and for me. “Well, this is brilliant,” I thought initially. “If it gets published, great. If not, at least Amy had the time to get it done.” It’s part of the life of a writer that it’s impossible to predict how far a completed piece will go, if anywhere. Zero part of me imagined what would happen once her Modern Love column was published in the New York Times.

  I recognized the traits from our very private life that Amy wrote about in her essay. We did not need to shout to the heavens how we felt about each other during the course of our long marriage together. We knew it. However, when she got her diagnosis, we began to speak about life after Amy. In those conversations, she encouraged me to carry on, to find someone else, that she wanted happiness and a long life for me with someone new. I was unable to process that reality until much later, so my reaction to her words at that point was always along the lines of “Okay, Amy, thank you. I understand how you feel.” And in typical AKR fashion, she’d say something like “But please wait a few months . . . ,” always infusing the challenges of life with humor.

  Reading Amy’s words again is as overwhelming as people’s reaction to the piece when it first came out. It conjures up the emotions from that time, because behind so many of the qualities she comments on, I don’t just see me, I see us. Those memories of cheese and olives, of the mini-sculpture that still sits on my shelf, of the Sunday morning smiley faces . . . those are memories of us. Sure, I did those things, but I did them for Amy. It didn’t strike me until much later that embedded in those memories are seeds that go all the way back to our marriage goals and ideas list. They are parts of me that didn’t emerge fully formed but instead grew out of my love for her and our love for each other.

  More than anything, though, the shared DNA here is that drive for “more” that Amy speaks of. In so many ways, that was the essence of our time together, a hunger to be together in whatever way possible.

  And yet even at the end of her life, there were surprises.

  One evening when we were deep in the throes of hospice, I stepped out of the house—a rare event at this point—to make a trip to the grocery store. The store was close to home, so I took the opportunity to get some fresh air and walked there. Our house is located on a tree-lined street on the north side of Chicago, with a brick-paved front area and a black wrought iron p
icket fence, kind of a modern Tom Sawyer deal.

  I was gone for maybe thirty minutes. I walked home in a quiet dusk. Streetlights had just come on. The peace and the beauty gave me a welcome exhale.

  Then, as I approached the house, I came to a complete stop and just gaped. I even wondered if I was experiencing some sleep-deprived, stress-induced hallucination. Somehow, in the half hour I’d been gone, someone had tied a row of yellow umbrellas to the thirty-eight or so feet of our fence. They were evenly spaced, open, glistening in the fading dusk. I’d never seen anything like it, not even in a movie or a museum.

  I raced into the house, and Paris and I assisted Amy to the front door to see this incredible vision. Depleted and frail as she was, she was still able to marvel at it. She didn’t say a word, she just stood there, with help, her eyes wide, and she smiled.

  This sign marked the scene I returned to.

  Possibly the most amazing thing of all—it was done in completely anonymity. No one ever took credit for it. To this day, I have no idea who gave us the gift of that unforgettable work of art.

  Whoever you are, “Thank you” doesn’t begin to express it.

  And thank you, human race, for the goodness that goes unacknowledged far too often.

  Looking back, it’s become especially clear to me that much of the generosity that was showered on Amy during this impossibly difficult time was the result of the immeasurable generosity she showered on the rest of us. Somehow, with that frail, dying body, she found the strength to pay attention to everyone close to her—her family and close friends—and give them each a special moment to remember her by and tie her to them forever. A last conversation. A final thought. An assurance that everything would be okay, that she knew death was coming, and that she wasn’t afraid. We all recall how at peace she was with the fact that she’d done everything medically possible and was ready for her transition, and she still found the strength to take care of us, while she was in hospice.