As part of the creative process, Nick described an interaction they had after he presented some music to her as part of their collaboration. It is a microcosm of a typical AKR interaction. What Nick describes here is commonplace to anyone who had any sort of working relationship with Amy. That it came at the end of Amy’s life is what makes this exchange worth including here. It says so much about Amy:
“Are you trying to score a movie? Is that harp? No. Sounds like pearly gates. None of that.” I would have been insulted if she wasn’t right and, also, it was just so badass. Even at the end, with a breathing tube and sapped of energy, artistic integrity and humor coursed through her veins, and she pushed me to a higher standard. Then and always.
To this day Nick has a special relationship with each of our kids, and he’s part of a very close group that we now call family. He had a powerful impact on Amy’s life. It was so moving to hear at the service that she had an equally powerful impact on his.
Then there was Ruby, who brought her intelligence, her humor, and her jack-of-all-trades skill set into our lives to help Amy through the completion of many, many projects and never missed a beat in the day-to-day responsibilities of working for a successful author. She was there throughout Amy’s end-of-life struggles and watched her vitality slip away, but she did it with enormous poise and always kept her tears to herself as best she could. Ruby has a special place at the Rosenthal table and always will.
Ruby shared with us that she found the job on Craigslist. The copy for the job listing included free lunch, which appealed to Ruby immediately. Ruby did such an elegant job of sharing with us the depth of her relationship with Amy as a woman, an artist, a friend, a boss, and a mentor.
Amy wasn’t just brilliant and creative. She had a true, raw love of her work. It is a palpable, contagious, precious thing she carried.
Amy seized on Ruby’s brilliance and they collaborated on Amy’s last memoir, Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal. There they would be, spending countless amounts of time debating a comma here or arguing over a semicolon versus ellipses there, and would pepper the house with pages from the book. But the biggest impact Ruby wanted to convey to those gathered for Amy that day was to share how much Amy meant to her as a person. Amy got to know Ruby so well, a side effect of working side by side with someone every day. She shared that Amy once wrote her a birthday card that said, “I hope today is filled with all your favorite things: Trees, friends, hummus, and crying.” Each of these activities was illustrated in stick figure form. Of course, anyone who spends even a brief amount of time with Amy was gifted with her ingenious creativity:
Once, I showed up at work in a dreadfully sad mood. After attempting normal conversation for a bit, she gave up and sat down next to me. “Are you feeling a little purple today?” She explained that if a ruby were a bit blue, it would be purple.
It is not difficult to see how Ruby remains a dear friend to our family. Her ongoing relationship with the kids will last a lifetime. And lucky for me, as I have embarked on a more creative version of myself, I have the good fortune of leaning on Ruby for all things relating to words and images.
Brian, a self-described “manny-slash–Marty Poppins,” did such an extraordinary job in his eulogy of introducing himself and explaining why the kids and I consider him a Rosenthal for life. He, too, came from Appleton and was with our family from the time the kids were eleven, thirteen, and fifteen to sixteen, eighteen, and twenty. Consistent with what others shared about their time with Amy, Brian shared how Amy impacted his life:
She led by example. She showed me how to do the big things: practice kindness, be true to yourself—both as an artist and as a person—and what it takes to be an incredible parent and loving partner. And also the small, yet equally important stuff: How to admit a mistake. How to express gratitude. How to show you care about someone with a yellow Post-it note or loose-leaf homemade sign.
Of course, the theme of Amy’s enthusiasm for life was present in Brian’s remarks as well. Sitting in the audience, overwhelmed with grief and barely able to hold my head up, I was filled with warmth hearing Brian talk about an average day with Amy.
I’d show up for work and she’d ask how my morning was. “Um, fine . . . I ate a peanut butter and banana sandwich.” And she’d be like: “No way! They were just talking on NPR how Elvis ate a peanut butter and banana sandwich every morning. We should totally listen to Elvis this afternoon while we work.”
It was impossible not to smile through the tears listening to this very Amy moment. Like most things in her life, it was not the big moments that mattered. Instead it was times like this that made Amy the person we all think back on today.
It was our instinct to have these brilliant friends and collaborators talk with us about Amy’s impact on their lives. When it came down to it, they each exceeded my expectations with their stories, their sincerity, and their humor. Oh, and did I mention that they all have Amy tattoos. Literally. I would challenge any group of former employees anywhere to see if their former employers made a permanent mark on their employees like Amy did here.
Several people asked me how I found the strength to speak at Amy’s memorial service. The truth is, I couldn’t imagine not speaking. Yes, I was devastated with grief; and yes, I was barely holding it together as I worked with my kids and family and friends and the synagogue staff on preparing for the day, our one chance to do it right. I just knew that I wanted everyone in that room to hear from me that Amy’s impact on all our lives was every bit as incredible as she explained to the world in every word she wrote, everything she did, and every moment she lived.
I could never hope to be the wordsmith she was, but I did my best. I won’t include the entire eulogy here, but I would like to offer one memory I shared with the audience that day:
Amy and I love live music. I would like to share a story with you that summarizes how playful and committed we were to our music. We were at a wedding downtown. But we had a serious conflict. One of our favorite bands was playing at Lollapalooza, which we had tickets for that weekend. Solution? We decided to do both. Amy brought her comfy shoes. During a break after the ceremony, we dipped out. Amy stashed her dress shoes in a planter outside and changed into her gym shoes. There we were. Running down Michigan Avenue. Formally dressed for a wedding. I threw my tie around my head, wearing it like a headband. We made the show! Soon we found ourselves dashing back down the street, up the stairs to the wedding and directly to the dance floor, as if we’d been there the entire time. The bride danced over by us soon thereafter and, smiling, said to Amy, “Oh, I am so glad someone else is sweating too, isn’t this great?” I think this encapsulates our joy for life together and how we lived as a couple.
I knew I had to share remarks about Amy that day. I could not let the chance to share a bit about our epic love story, include a bit about the impact of cancer and ask for a commitment to keep that disease in people’s minds and emphasize Amy’s impact on me and my life. Not long after, a friend sent a note about the service that read, “I’ll remember it forever, and live my life differently because of it.”
That’s what Amy did for people, the imprint she left on their lives. When Amy entered your orbit, things forever changed. I know that better than anyone, because most of all, she did that for me.
Part III
Filling a Blank Space
11
Empty, Not Nest
Without clouds, there will be no rain;
without rain, trees cannot grow;
and without trees, we cannot make paper.
—Thich Nhat Hanh
You hear about it. You read about it. You see movies about it. You anticipate it over and over and over again, trying to brace yourself. But it turns out that nothing you do prepares you for the intensity of the emotional implosion that slams into you when your loved one takes her final breath.
It was more complicated than I’d expected. I knew I’d be decimated. I knew I’d be lonely, vulnerable, empty, and gr
ief-stricken. I knew I’d be indescribably sad. Turns out that is pretty much accurate. And then some.
What I didn’t know was how strongly I’d still feel Amy’s presence at every turn and be brought to my knees by a song, a scent, a taste, walking past one of our favorite restaurants or just spotting a yellow . . . anything.
What I didn’t know was how empty I would feel after two years of being singularly focused on her getting well; on being tuned in to her every minute of every day to make sure she was comfortable and in as little pain as possible; on thinking of every creative way I could come up with to remind her how loved she was—and now what? All that intense focus was suddenly gone, leaving no relief in its wake, just a hollow, gaping void and nothing to fill it with.
Most of all, though, what I didn’t know, what I could only learn with time, and later in hindsight, was how much Amy’s essay would become the backdrop for so much of my life following her death—both in those early days and long after. Suddenly I had the time to fully weigh the words that I’d struggled to process in the moment when the piece first came out. Of course, her writing had moved me and stirred up every emotion I’d had. But I hadn’t dwelled on it because I was so focused on her and what we were going through together. I hadn’t really thought of the implications of what she wanted for me. Of how she wanted me to use her death as an opportunity to continue to live my life. Of how this piece, written for all to see, was also a singular message to me.
Now that I had nothing but time to pore over her words, I found myself grasping the significance of what she wanted for me, of what she was trying to do. Reading her words, not just those from the essay but all the others that she had written in her career, left me with little pieces of her everywhere around me, each a clear reminder of how Amy had lived. Even though in the immediate aftermath, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and stay there, I knew that was exactly what Amy wouldn’t let me do.
More than anything, her words left me with the realization that whatever I chose to do with my blank space, I needed to make sure it was something I wanted. Amy had wanted me to make a plan. She’d wanted me to fill my blank space, to live my best life and make someone else happy. In theory I understood all that; in practice, I had no idea what any of it meant. After all, she knew me better than any person on the planet, so she knew I would struggle with how to go about filling that blank space she so publicly gave me. It almost seems like her list-making skills were put to the ultimate test as she left me pretty specific clues as to how to proceed forward.
Pick a moment in those first few months—honestly, they were all the same. There was no sunlight, only a few smiles, and certainly no laughter.
The early days were hazy at best—a collage of painful impressions with only a few specific events and faces. At worst they’re just gone, days I don’t remember that I never want back. At the beginning of April, just a few weeks after Amy’s death, I decided to attend a previously scheduled work conference in DC. Not only are the entire two days lost to me now, but I felt that way immediately after I left the conference, as though all on its own my body had drifted there, occupied thinly cushioned chairs, been fed details about statutes and medical charts, and guided itself back to Chicago.
What does stand out for me about that time now is not so much a single person or event, but more the overwhelming feeling of love and support I experienced wherever I turned. The way in which people who mattered went out of their way to tell me what I meant to them—and how crucial that was to my beginning to feel like I could do this. My heart breaks for people who have to face similar trauma on their own. I don’t know how I would have made it if that had been true for me.
Not surprisingly, it all started with family. The kids and I were surrounded and loved by our world-class family, and it still takes my breath away how they were, are, and always will be there for us, even when they were grieving the loss of their daughter, sister, daughter-in-law, and sister-in-law and dealing with challenges of their own.
During that awful time, my mom supported me in ways I never could have imagined. While she’d been there for me unconditionally all my life, she showed up without my even having to ask. She and Amy were so connected and shared so much together. Mom took Amy’s death hard, but it never stopped her, not once, from being right there for me and her grandchildren whenever we needed her. She’s youthful, fit, and still working. She lives near me in Chicago, so we’re still physically connected as well and easily able to spend time together; and there’s nothing we can’t talk about, from finances to end-of-life issues to the grandchildren she adores. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating—I credit my mother with making me the man I am today. All this care and support from Mom, mind you, while her husband, my stepfather, fell ill, lost his short-term memory, and had to be placed in a memory care facility, where he is to this day. My sister, Michel, was a supporting figure for me during this very dark time. A simple text, an offer of food, or a generous gesture like taking care of Cougar made it clear how much she cared.
I grew up the son of a therapist. My sister eventually got her degree in counseling psychology. My entire life I was surrounded by the reminders of “feelings,” and how important it was to access them. It became almost a joke as I got older. I remember one Hanukkah my mom getting a gag gift. It was a psychotherapist doll that said on repeat, “And how did that make you feel?” With that upbringing, one would think that I had experience with psychoanalysis myself, but I had not.
My sister and my mom had encouraged me to seek out a good therapist while Amy was going through her illness, but I was not ready until after Amy died—I was simply too focused on her. Eventually, though, the point came when I knew I needed to work on myself to find a safe space to talk about issues I could not discuss with my family and kids. I wanted to talk about the complexities of being single, of single parenting, and of wanting to do something meaningful with my work life.
I found a good therapy match after a couple of stumbles, and can’t imagine not having found that private time, even up to the current day.
And then there was my mother-in-law. Ann is like no other human I know on this planet. If you’re looking for the cliché contentious son-in-law/mother-in-law relationship, don’t waste your time looking here. Ann has made me feel like her son since the day I entered the Krouse family, and our connection has only deepened over the almost three decades we’ve been in each other’s lives. She was there for almost every one of Amy’s doctors’ appointments, taking copious notes, asking the right questions, and holding Amy’s hand. She was there for the most intimate caretaking moments of home hospice, and she never left the house without taking the time to assure me that everything I was doing for Amy was exactly the right way to approach the end of her life. She didn’t need to be told how much I needed to hear it. She just knew.
She’s been nothing but supportive and comforting since we lost Amy, and she continues to encourage me to keep telling my story. As difficult as it must be sometimes for her to hear me talk about her daughter, her work, her spirit, and our love story, Ann has been a smart, honest, enthusiastic sounding board for me and her grandchildren, no matter what we need to discuss. She even knows when to give advice and when to simply let us figure it out for ourselves. She also enjoys pointing out how ironic it is that she’s Amy’s mom because of their tremendously different approaches to fashion, fiction, and fun. Ann knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything about our relationship is reciprocal.
During long walks, lingering dinners, and extended visits, there’s nothing we can’t talk about, nothing off-limits or too personal, speaking openly and at length about life and death. A long walk in Atlanta, in her neighborhood in the suburbs of Chicago, or near her home in Florida would always result in an overall check-in about both of our lives. At one dinner in particular in Chicago, there we were, sharing how we each felt about our current lots in life. We have so much in common yet are a generation apart in our experiences of loss. Ann to
ok that time to remind me how much it meant to her and my father-in-law that I took such great care of their daughter during the darkest time of all of our lives. I knew she meant it deep down in her heart, and hearing it truly made me feel a sense of reassurance that I’d done the right thing by taking care of Amy in home hospice. In our multilayered conversations, I tried to share my experience with the darkness of grief and, as she was experiencing her own loss, to reassure her that time itself does mysterious things, advice I received from others who had experienced intense loss.
Not to be outdone, every single one of our siblings, their spouses, and their children were extraordinary, the perfect combination of emotional connection, healthy space, and unconditional love in endless supply toward me and the kids. They all promised Amy that they would look after us, and they’ve kept that promise flawlessly, even while navigating the depth of their own loss. We shared so much joy as our kids were growing up together—the Sunday gatherings, the Shabbat dinners, the family trips, celebrating large and small milestones, just hanging out. That we could share sorrow with the same loving, unedited closeness is a gift I’ll never take for granted.
My in-laws lived for years in a home built for family. We often had family dinners there, sometimes all twenty-three of us, sitting around laughing and eating and sharing stories. Each and every dinner started with a toast from our patriarch, Amy’s dad, Paul. This tradition carried on after Amy died, even if the table was not quite full of all of our family members (kids in other cities working, or off to college). I remember clearly one such dinner in June 2017. There we were, cousins ranging in age from two to twenty-four, going around the table and sharing stories. I was in my new “crying” phase, where I could not get through talking about Amy without shedding a tear. The sense of family was deep. The love in the room radiated, a feeling I am so grateful for—one I know many people are not so lucky to have.
My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me Page 10
