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JBC Author Series - My Wife Said You May Want To Marry Me: A Memoir

Thursday, April 22, 2021 10 Iyar 5781

8:00 PM - 9:30 PMVia Zoom

Watch Archived Event Here

An inspiring memoir of life, love, loss and new beginnings by the widower of bestselling children's author and filmmaker, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, whose last act of love before her death was setting the stage for her husband's life without her in a column in The New York Times. On March 3, 2017, Amy Krouse Rosenthal penned an op-ed piece for The New York Times's "Modern Love" column – "You May Want to Marry My Husband." It appeared ten days before her death from ovarian cancer. A heartbreaking, wry, brutally honest, and creative play on a personal ad – in which a dying wife encouraged her husband to go on and find happiness after her demise – the column quickly went viral, reaching more than five million people worldwide.

In My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me, Jason describes what came next: his commitment to respecting Amy's wish even as he struggled with her loss. Surveying his life before, with, and after Amy, Jason ruminates on love, the pain of watching a loved one suffer, and what it means to heal – how he and their three children, despite their profound sorrow, went on. Jason's emotional journey offers insights on dying and death and the excruciating pain of losing a soulmate, and illuminates the lessons he learned. As he reflects on Amy's gift to him – a fresh start to fill his empty space with a new story  Jason describes how he continues to honor Amy's life and her last wish and how he seeks to appreciate every day and live in the moment while trying to help others coping with loss. 

Click here* to purchase My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me: A Memoir
*For each purchase using the link above, the synagogue receives a small commission.


Jason Rosenthal is a lawyer and the executive director of a nonprofit organization created in his late wife's name, the Amy Krouse Rosenthal Foundation, which funds child literacy programs and ovarian cancer research. His Ted Talk "The Journey Through Loss and Grief" has been viewed over 1.4 million times since June 2018. He lives in Chicago and is a doting father to his and Amy's three children. 

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