When Amy Krouse Rosenthal penned a heartbreaking dating profile for her husband, Jason Rosenthal, before her death last year, she encouraged him to start a new love story. 
 
 It’s been 15 months since the Chicago author died from ovarian cancer on March 13, 2017. And although Jason has been able to find moments of joy again, the widower says he’s not sure if he’ll ever remarry. 
 
 “I have no idea. I don’t know,” he said in a recent interview with Today. “When I said, ‘I live day to day,’ that’s what I’m doing right now.” 
 
 Last March, The New York Times published the dating profile titled “You May Want to Marry My Husband” that Amy wrote for Jason. In the moving essay, Amy called Jason “an easy man to fall in love with,” described him as a “sharp dresser” and an “absolutely wonderful father” to their three children. 
 
 RELATED: Husband of Dying Author Who Wrote Heartbreaking Dating Profile for Him Speaks Out 1 Year Later 
 
 Courtesy Rosenthal Family 
 
 RELATED: Chicago Author Who Wrote Heartbreaking Dating Profile for Husband Dies: Her ‘Love Letter Was the Ultimate Gift’ 
 
 Amy died 10 days after the profile was published. Jason said the months following her death were “groggy,” but he found a bit of joy in the onslaught of messages he received from female readers. 
 
 “A group of women reached out to me and professed their commitment,” he told Today. “Some of it provided a nice bit of levity and some humor.” 
 
 The comments come just after he opened up about his wife’s final weeks during the recent TED 2018 conference. He spoke of a particular email from a potential partner. 
 
 The message read: “I will marry you when you are ready. Provided you permanently stop drinking, no other conditions. I promise to outlive you. Thank you very much.” 
 
 Despite the instances of humor and joy, Jason said he is still haunted by the last moments he spent with Amy. 
 
 “My wife died of ovarian cancer in our bed,” he said in the TED Talk. “I carried her lifeless body down our stairs, through our dining room and our living room to a waiting gurney to have her body cremated. I will never get that image out of my head.” 
 
 RELATED: Woman with Terminal Cancer Creates Heartbreaking Dating Profile for Husband: ‘He Is an Easy Man to Fall in Love With’ 
 
 The love letter captured the world’s attention, making Jason’s grief public. Still, he said, his final weeks with his wife produced a personal pain he’ll never be able to adequately express. 
 
 Courtesy Rosenthal Family 
 
 “I remember walking backwards to the bathroom, assisting Amy with each step,” he said. “I felt so strong. I’m not such a big guy, but my arms looked and felt so big and healthy compared to Amy’s frail body.” 
 
 Now, Jason is grateful for his wife’s very public edict that he “go on” after her death. 
 
 “As I climbed out of the deep, deep darkness of grieving, I sort of had that little guardian angel on my shoulder when I went out and I found my smiling,” he told Today. “I’m laughing, ‘It’s okay, Amy said you could find happiness.’ ” 
 
 The Rosenthal family has also relaunched the Amy Krouse Rosenthal Foundation, which now funds ovarian cancer research and childhood literacy initiatives. ||||| Get the latest from TODAY Sign up for our newsletter 
 
 June 12, 2018, 9:35 PM GMT / Source: TODAY By Gina Vivinetto 
 
 Author and filmmaker Amy Krouse Rosenthal touched readers' hearts last year when she wrote a heartbreaking dating profile for her husband, Jason Rosenthal, just days before dying of ovarian cancer. 
 
 Now, in a candid TED Talk, Jason Rosenthal is opening up about his late wife's final days and how he's learning to find joy again after losing his companion of more than 26 years. 
 
 "My wife died of ovarian cancer in our bed,” Rosenthal told the audience at the recent TED 2018 conference, the video of which was released this week. “I carried her lifeless body down our stairs, through our dining room and our living room to a waiting gurney to have her body cremated. I will never get that image out of my head." 
 
 In March 2017, 10 days before she died at 51, Amy Krouse Rosenthal published an essay titled "You May Want to Marry My Husband" in the New York Times. The tender, funny essay acted as a kind of personal ad for Jason, who, she knew, would soon be a widower. 
 
 "He is an easy man to fall in love with. I did it in one day," Amy wrote, recalling the couple's first blind date nearly three decades before. She described Jason as thoughtful, handy and handsome. "I’m going to miss looking at that face of his," she wrote, adding that he was an “absolutely wonderful father” to their three grown children. 
 
 Jason Rosenthal said he tries to honor his late wife, author and filmmaker Amy Krouse Rosenthal, by finding beauty and joy in simple moments. TED 
 
 "We were in love and our love grew stronger up until her last day," Jason Rosenthal told the audience of his endlessly creative late wife, who published both best-selling children's books — including "I Wish You More" and "Uni the Unicorn" — and critically acclaimed memoirs. 
 
 "To this day I have memories of those final weeks that haunt me," he shared. “I remember walking backwards to the bathroom, assisting Amy with each step. I felt so strong. I’m not such a big guy, but my arms looked and felt so big and healthy compared to Amy’s frail body.” 
 
 Amy Krouse Rosenthal @missamykr/Twitter 
 
 In January 2017, Amy had given up eating solid food, and though she'd shrunk to half her body weight, she hung on for two more months. After her death, Rosenthal experienced "despair," which was made worse four months later when his father died of complications related to a battle with Parkinson's disease. 
 
 "I had to wonder: How much can the human condition handle?" Rosenthal asked. "What makes us capable of dealing with this intense loss and yet carry on? Was this a test? Why my family and my amazing children?" 
 
 The key to his being able to persevere, he shared, "is Amy's expressed and very public edict that I must go on." 
 
 Though he's "sad a lot of the time," Rosenthal said he does his best to honor Amy by seeking out joy and beauty each day. 
 
 “Because Amy gave me very public permission to also find happiness, I now have experienced joy from time to time," he said. 
 
 Music, nature and time with his children are precious sources of pleasure, he shared, adding that relishing simple, everyday moments was "part of Amy's DNA." 
 
 As for his late wife's adoring essay about him, it did prompt all sorts of people, including interested women, to reach out. One potential suitor emailed him with an ultimatum. 
 
 "I will marry you when you are ready. Provided you permanently stop drinking, no other conditions. I promise to outlive you. Thank you very much," the woman bluntly wrote. 
 
 "I do like a good tequila," Rosenthal joked to the audience. "Yet, how could I say ‘no’ to that proposal?” 
 
 The letter he most cherished, however, was one from a close family friend, who remembered his late wife teaching guests how to make cornbread croutons at a Shabbat dinner. 
 
 "Only Amy," the friend wrote, "could find creativity in croutons." 
 
 Rosenthal and his family have set up a foundation in his late wife's name to raise money for ovarian cancer research and children's literacy, causes that were near and dear to her heart. ||||| ‘You may want to marry my husband’ Chicago essayist dead at 51 
 
 Chicago author Amy Krouse Rosenthal died Monday of the ovarian cancer she wrote about in a powerful New York Times essay seeking a future partner for her husband Jason. 
 
 “You may want to marry my husband” was published online March 3 and in the newspaper March 5. It quickly went viral. It’s already one of the Times’ most popular “Modern Love” columns ever, said Dan Jones, who edits the column. 
 
 On Valentine’s Day — the day Ms. Krouse Rosenthal finished writing the essay — her husband of 26 years celebrated their romance by decorating their Lakeview home. 
 
 “All over the house, downstairs, upstairs and in the kitchen, Jason had hung music sheets with words to different love songs for Amy, with notes on each one,” said her literary agent Amy Rennert, who confirmed Ms. Krouse Rosenthal died Monday at her Lakeview home. 
 
 RELATED STORY: Author John Green: Amy Krouse Rosenthal was a huge influence 
 
 Ms. Krouse Rosenthal, 51, who grew up in Northbrook and Lake Forest, was the best-selling author of more than 30 childrens’ books, including “Chopsticks,” “Duck! Rabbit!” “Spoon” and “Little Pig,” “Little Pea” and “Little Hoot.” 
 
 She also wrote 2005’s “Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life” and last year’s “Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal.” She contributed to NPR, made short films and gave TED talks. Her writing featured wordplay, lists, visual puns, charts and serendipitous coincidences. 
 
 She fell in love with Jason B. Rosenthal the day she met him on a blind date in 1989, when they were both 24. 
 
 “By the end of our merlot and rigatoni, I knew he was the one,” she said in “Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life.” 
 
 In her New York Times essay, she wrote: 
 
 “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 minimart 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.” 
 
 Her husband, a Chicago attorney, said he was staggered by the beauty and honesty of her column. 
 
 “It is Amy’s gift with words that has drawn the universe in,” Jason Rosenthal said in a written statement last week. “I am not surprised that her ‘Modern Love’ essay in the New York Times has garnered the attention it so deserves. I didn’t know exactly what she was composing 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. 
 
 “Unfortunately, I do not have the same aptitude for the written word,” he said, “but if I did, I can assure you that my tale would be about the most epic love story…ours.” 
 
 Ms. Krouse Rosenthal said the first word she ever uttered was “more.” She grew up in Northbrook and Lake Forest in a family of four children. She graduated from Lake Forest High School and Tufts University outside Boston. 
 
 She started out as an advertising copywriter. But one day, at a McDonald’s with her kids, “All of a sudden it felt like I wasn’t going about this living thing the right way,” she once told the Chicago Reader. “I knew I had to keep writing.” 
 
 She began doing creative writing in coffeehouses. One of her favorites was Wicker Park’s Urbus Orbis. 
 
 Her projects were rich in quirky charm. In the “Lost and Found” video she made with Steve Delahoyde, she left copies of “Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life” in taxis, the Music Box theater and a restroom. She buried a plastic-wrapped book inside a snowman. And she left notes encouraging readers to let her know about finding them. 
 
 A Booklist review called the book “immensely readable and frequently hilarious.” Who else but the author, writer Leon Wagner asked, “would challenge a Chicago parking ticket on grounds of karma (and succeed)? Or have a professional police artist draw sketches of her based on descriptions from her father and husband?” 
 
 In a TED talk, she discussed finding unexpected charm in the everyday, like looking at an ATM but seeing an acronym for “Always Trust Magic.” 
 
 Another video, “17 Things I Made,” invited viewers to meet her at The Bean in Millennium Park at 8:08 p.m. on 8/08/08 to make an “18th thing.” She said she’d be known by the yellow umbrella she’d be carrying. When Ms. Krouse Rosenthal arrived, hundreds had gathered. Under her direction, they connected, blew bubbles and skipped through the Millennium Park fountains. 
 
 One of the participants in the gathering was her friend John Green, who wrote “The Fault in Our Stars” and “Paper Towns.” He credits her with helping to start his career by asking him to write and record an essay for WBEZ. Green said her work shows that “If you pay the right kind of attention, the mundane becomes beautiful.” 
 
 On Tuesday night, he read her book “Uni the Unicorn” to his young daughter, and thought: “Only Amy could have imagined a unicorn that believes in little girls.” 
 
 Other fans of her kids’ books include Reese Witherspoon. And author Sherman Alexie said in 2013 that “Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life” was his holiday gift. 
 
 “Amy Krouse Rosenthal was more than a talented and prolific writer and filmmaker whose work brought warmth and joy to readers young and old,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said. “She was a personal friend, a proud Chicagoan, and a devoted mother, wife and daughter. Amy and my thoughts and prayers are with her family, friends and all those she left behind.” 
 
 Ms. Krouse Rosenthal’s North Side home is decorated in what she called “Book Lover Modern,” with books under glass, a sculpture made of books, a book clock and a vintage library card catalog. Her favorite purse featured the cover of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” In a video tour of her house, she showed viewers a jacket made out of her book covers, which she called her “book-jacket jacket.” 
 
 She is also survived by her children, Justin, Miles and Paris; her parents Ann and Paul Krouse; sisters Katie Froelich and Beth Kaufmann, and brother Joe Krouse. 
 
 In an essay for Oprah magazine after her 40th birthday, she wrote: “How many more times do I get to cut an apple? How many more times will I put on my coat? Put a quarter in the meter? Kiss my mother?. . . . How many more times will I hold my purse up to my ear to see if it’s my cell phone that’s ringing….How many times do I get to wake up?” 
 
 READ MORE: 
 
 • You may want to marry my husband 
 
 • ‘Live for the Moment’: Readers Share Stories of Love and Loss 
 
 • Husband featured in wife’s viral essay ‘shocked at the beauty’
– It's been more than a year since author Amy Krouse Rosenthal died of ovarian cancer shortly after writing a viral essay in which she encouraged readers to consider marrying husband Jason after her passing. Now Jason Rosenthal is speaking out, in a TED talk he gave at the TED 2018 conference as well as an interview with Today. Asked whether he'll remarry, he said, "I have no idea. I don’t know." But he says several women did reach out after reading his late wife's column. "A group of women reached out to me and professed their commitment," he told Today, per People. "Some of it provided a nice bit of levity and some humor." He says one of the women even promised to outlive him. As for the TED talk, Rosenthal recounted his grief and said he's learning to smile again after losing his partner of 26 years, Today reports. His father also died just four months after Amy, leading him to wonder, "How much can the human condition handle? What makes us capable of dealing with this intense loss and yet carry on? Was this a test? Why my family and my amazing children?" But Amy had made it clear to the world at large that he needed to persevere. "Because Amy gave me very public permission to also find happiness, I now have experienced joy from time to time," he said in the talk.