Amy Krouse Rosenthal, author who penned dating profile for husband, has died
An expert offers four tips on how to broach loving after death.
— -- Encouraging your partner to seek love after you die can be a difficult subject to broach, but a recent New York Times column was also a reminder of just how heartwarming it can be.
Author Amy Krouse Rosenthal, who died today from ovarian cancer, recently penned a dating profile for her husband of 26 years, Jason Rosenthal. She was 51.
In a statement, Rosenthal's longtime literary agent Amy Rennert told ABC News, "Everything Amy did was life and love affirming. She was such a bright light with a great sense of wonder. Amy loved her family. She loved words, ideas, connections. She taught us that life's seemingly small moments are not really small at all."
"Amy's final essay, written under the most difficult of circumstances, a love letter to her husband Jason, was the ultimate gift to him and also to the rest of us," the statement continued.
In her Modern Love essay titled "You may want to marry my husband," Rosenthal shared that she believed it was OK for her husband to find love after her death and listed all his lovable qualities for a future mate.
Rosenthal noted that she wrote the column in hopes "that the right person reads this, finds Jason, and another love story begins."
ABC News had reached out to Rosenthal on March 3, but she declined to comment.
Harvey Max Chochinov, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, told ABC News earlier this month that although a request like this was "meant to give comfort, it also forces people to really think and wrap their minds around the reality of this person no longer being in their lives."
For individuals who are dying and want to tell their loved ones that it's OK for them to find love upon their death, Chochinov offered four tips to help have the conversation.
1. This won't be easy
2. Be direct
3. It's OK if the conversation is short
4. Seek help
"There are psychological interventions and therapeutic approaches ... to help them articulate the things they want known,” he said, “[whether it's] finding someone else, words or wisdom or guidance, what matters and how they want to be remembered."