The Heartbreaking Reason This Woman Wrote A Dating Profile For Her Husband

Amy Krouse Rosenthal is an author of children's books, grown-up books, and short videos. She likes making wishes, salads, and connections with the universe, according to her personal website.

She's a wife and a mother. And she is dying.

Rosenthal found out that she has ovarian cancer in late 2015, the same day she and her husband sent their youngest child off to college, she wrote in a personal essay in the New York Times.

In that same essay, she makes a convincing case for the next woman who dates her husband. He's a great catch, and she wants everyone to know it.

"I have been married to the most extraordinary man for 26 years," she wrote. "I was planning on at least another 26 together."

But since that can't happen, she built a dating profile for her husband — in hopes that someone will read it, find him, and fall in love.

"He is an easy man to fall in love with. I did it in one day," she wrote.

"First, the basics: He is 5-foot-10, 160 pounds, with salt-and-pepper hair and hazel eyes.

He is a sharp dresser. If our home could speak, it would add that Jason is uncannily handy. On the subject of food — man, can he cook," she wrote.

She continues to build up an impressive profile for this man that she loves so much, and knows so very well.

"I want more time with Jason," she wrote after completing his profile. "But that is not going to happen."

So, in one of her last acts as "a person on this planet" Krouse Rosenthal said that she wrote this essay in hopes that "the right person reads this, finds Jason, and another love story begins."

It's a beautiful, heartbreaking, and deeply personal essay. And we hope Jason finds a new love, too. But that is likely going to take some time. Dating after a partner dies isn't easy, and it looks different for everyone. In a post called "Dating Tips For Widows" on HuffPo, one widow wrote seven tips for others about how to eventually start dating again. Tip #4: "wait until you’re ready," seems obvious, but how do you know if you're ready?

The truth, wrote Aaron Ben-Zeév, Ph.D, in Psychology Today, is that a widow (or widower) may never be ready. Choosing to never date again after a partner's death is one of three paths people who've lost a loved one usually take, he wrote, including starting a relationship right away and falling in love with a new person while still loving the partner they lost.

And the important thing to remember is that all three paths are valid.

Read Rosenthal's whole essay at the New York Times.