Amy Krouse Rosenthal, the cancer-stricken author who attracted headlines for penning a dating profile for her husband in her dying days, died Monday at age 51, People reports.
“Everything Amy did was life and love affirming,” Rosenthal’s literary agent and friend, Amy Rennert, told People in a statement. “She was such a bright light with a great sense of wonder. Amy loved her family. She loved words, ideas, connections.”
Chicago-based author Rosenthal, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2015, wrote dozens of books for children and adults as well as a memoir, “Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life.”
Her most recent notable work, however, was the dating profile she wrote for her husband Jason Rosenthal, in the form of a column in the New York Times.
In the piece, published March 3, Rosenthal called her husband “the most extraordinary man,” noting that they’d been married for 26 years “and I was planning on at least another 26 together.”
“He is an easy man to fall in love with. I did it in one day,” Rosenthal continued in the column.
“First, the basics: He is 5-foot-10, 160 pounds, with salt-and-pepper hair and hazel eyes,” Rosenthal continued before offering a list of her husband’s attributes.
“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,” Rosenthal wrote. “He is fit and enjoys keeping in shape.”
In response to his wife’s essay, Jason Rosenthal said that he was “shocked at the beauty” of it.
“I didn’t know exactly what she was composing,” Rosenthal said in a statement. “But I was with her as she labored through this process and I can tell you that writing the story was no easy task. 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.”