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A wonderful story in The Washington Post today:

He became one of America’s most famous widowers — thanks to his wife. Now he’s trying

to teach us about grief.

* * *

Jason Rosenthal enjoyed a splendid but quiet life. He was happy to have his wife, an

acclaimed children’s book author, memoirist, filmmaker, public speaker and

ebullient extrovert, settle in the spotlight.

“I was just doing my thing,” he says. “A kid from Chicago. If you googled me, you

wouldn’t find anything.”

Then, on Valentine’s Day, Amy Krouse Rosenthal inked a love letter to him. This

was three years ago.

“I have been married to the most extraordinary man for 26 years,” she wrote. “I was

planning on another 26 years.”

That was not going to happen. Amy was in the final stage of ovarian cancer.

The letter was also a personal ad of sorts — “Did I mention he’s incredibly

handsome?” — seeking Rosenthal’s second wife. “He is an easy man to fall in love

with,” she wrote in the three-hanky piece, the final project of a woman of perpetual

projects and lists. “I did it in one day.”

Her story ran as a New York Times Modern Love column, often real estate for

romantic woe, under the drop-everything-and-read-this headline, “You May Want

to Marry My Husband.” The piece ends with “an intentional empty space below as a

way of giving you two the fresh start you deserve.”

You may well have read it. More than five million people did.

Ten days later, on March 13, 2017, Amy died at age 51 after a year and a half of hell.

Suddenly, Rosenthal was “that husband,” as he puts it, an exemplar of grief. He

became, arguably, the most famous widower in America.

He was Tom Hanks in “Sleepless in Seattle.” Except, it was his late beloved wife

igniting his celebrity, instead of a mop-topped son.

Rosenthal was enveloped in a fog of mourning with their three children, now ages

23, 25 and 27. Instead of being defined as a lawyer and real estate developer, he was

now a go-to authority for grief and loss.

He delivered a TED talk which, naturally, resulted in requests for more talks. He

published a response Modern Love column, which ran in June 2018. It began “I am

that guy” beneath the headline “My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me,” the title

of Rosenthal’s new memoir. His book is being published this week, during the

coronavirus pandemic, when the world is going through its own protracted season

of grief.

The book is a 228-page love declaration to Amy. She continues to define everything.

After Amy’s death, Rosenthal became the subject of intense fascination. Hollywood

producers came a courting.

Did women, too? Yes, indeedy.

For the first year, he hardly noticed. “I was insularly focused on my kids and my

family, and so overwhelmed with grief, I didn’t appreciate and understand the

attention,” says Rosenthal, 55. “It wasn’t until later, looking at all the objects and

art and emails and letters that people sent me that I realized the world was grieving

with me.” A friend dubbed it “a global shiva,” the Jewish period of mourning.

He had planned to share all this on his book tour. Now, like almost everything else

during the pandemic, it’s been scrapped. So, he’s on the phone from the dream

home he built with Amy less than a mile from Wrigley Field. Two of their children

have returned to live with him during self-quarantine.

Since his wife’s death, Rosenthal overhauled his daily life. He stepped away from

real estate, reduced his legal practice, and established a foundation in Amy’s name,

funding ovarian cancer research and children’s literacy. He sold Amy’s Modern

Love story and her memoir “Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life” to Hollywood,

though the project is “sort of at a standstill. There’s no director attached.”

He allocated more time to enjoy what he loves: music, friends, travel, family. More

was Amy’s first word as a child, and her mantra.

“I definitely feel a shift in my work life. My life has extraordinarily more meaning.”

he says. “I was definitely a head-down, providing for my family type of husband,

working six days a week.”

He experienced a multi-vehicle crack up of death: Amy, his father-in-law (they were

incredibly close), his father (complicated), their black lab mix. He delivered three

eulogies in less than two years.

Rosenthal hesitates when he speaks. Three years later, the renown his wife

bequeathed him does not seem a natural fit.

So, about the women.

Rosenthal estimates 300 prospective suitors took Amy up on her proposal. For a

while, he placed their correspondence in storage bins, tucked in a crawl space.

There were “seven-page handwritten letters, extolling their virtues, their great

looks,” he recalls. “Someone who was good at fixing a car. There were bunches of

these envelopes decorated with stickers, almost as if they were young girls.”

One woman proclaimed, “I will marry you when you’re ready, provided you

permanently stop drinking,” she wrote. “Take your time. I promise to outlive you.”

Rosenthal enjoys a good tequila but not that much.

He waits until the memoir’s final chapter to share, yes, he met someone. “A hazel eyed

identical twin,” he notes, a curious way to describe a companion, and leaves

the bio at that.

How long have they been dating? Rosenthal declines comment.

It’s “not relevant,” says the subject of a 1,323-word personal ad read by more than

five million people. For crying out loud, consider the title of his memoir.

Okay, fine.

Rosenthal does write, “my world changed” because of his new companion, that he

felt apprehensive, judged in public being seen with someone new, because he was

“that guy,” Amy’s guy. Then, he realized that “being happy again would actually be,

in a way, a testament to the 30 beautiful years I’d had with Amy.”

He felt prepared for this surreal moment, he says, in a time of mounting grief.

“I have, in my view, been through the whole range of emotions,” he says. “I

experienced the depths of the pure sadness and grieving, and I’m armed with that.

I’m able to handle this situation.” Rosenthal adds, “I feel my story of loss is really

relevant to what is happening now. But also, in my story, there’s an end, a

resilience.”

He will promote the book as best he can. “I do appreciate there may be another

chapter. I don’t know what that blank space will be filled with,” he says.

“I’ve been given an amazing gift,” he says, adding, as though it could be from

anyone else, “by Amy.”