How Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s Daughter Is Carrying On Her Legacy
The Internet collectively wept when beloved author Amy Krouse Rosenthal penned a dating profile for her husband shortly before dying from ovarian cancer. Now her daughter is finishing her mother’s passion project and sharing it with fans.
On Tuesday, Amy’s Instagram page was updated with a note from her daughter Paris Rosenthal. It read, “Many of you know that my Mom had an Instagram project where she posted a new 1,2,3 list daily at 1:23pm. Her goal was 123 days. She made it to day 61. For the next 62 days, to complete the 123 days, I will take my own variation on this project of hers. Everyday at 1:23pm, I will post a photo that represents something about Amy Krouse Rosenthal. I will acknowledge AKR in some way everyday for the rest of my life, and this is the first step of my journey in doing so.” She also urged fans to follow her project at @akr.par.
Amy described Project 1,2,3 on her Instagram page as follows: “I will challenge myself to come up with something new every day that can be expressed in a list of 3. (It can be anything: Prose, drawings, recipes, etc.) I will post it daily at 1:23 p.m. I will begin this project on 12/3.”
A post shared by Amy Krouse Rosenthal (@missamykr) on Dec 3, 2016 at 11:23am PST
On March 3, Amy, 51, the author of more than 30 children’s books, wrote a touching tribute to her spouse in The New York Times’ Modern Love column. In the piece titled “You May Want to Marry My Husband,” she describes how she and Jason, her husband of 26 years, coped with her 2015 diagnosis and her hopes for Jason to fall in love again after her death. “First, the basics: He is 5-foot-10, 160 pounds, with salt-and-pepper hair and hazel eyes,” Amy wrote in the viral essay, which was shared thousands of times on social media and called “heartbreaking” and “moving.”
The mother-of-three added, “If you’re looking for a dreamy, let’s-go-for-it travel companion, Jason is your man. He also has an affinity for tiny things: taster spoons, little jars, a mini-sculpture of a couple sitting on a bench, which he presented to me as a reminder of how our family began.”
Amy also described how Jason arrived at their first pregnancy ultrasound bearing flowers, his boyish habit of arranging kitchen items into smiley faces, and how he always remembered the type of gumballs she couldn’t stand (white). She wrote, “I probably have only a few days left being a person on this planet. So why I am doing this? I am wrapping this up on Valentine’s Day, and the most genuine, non-vase-oriented gift I can hope for is that the right person reads this, finds Jason, and another love story begins. I’ll leave this intentional empty space below as a way of giving you two the fresh start you deserve.”
Amy died on March 13.
According to the New York Times, the mother-daughter duo collaborated on a project called “Dear Girl.” Yahoo Beauty could not reach Paris for comment.
Paris posted her first photo in the “Project 1,2,3 series” one week ago. She wrote, in part, “Today’s post, the first post, represents Amy wearing her favorite button dress, holding a yellow umbrella.”
“This is a photo of Mom’s clog (boy, did she love clogs) next to my shoe from when I was little. They’re awfully similar. I love looking at them side by side.”
A post shared by P (@akr.par) on Mar 21, 2017 at 11:40am PDT
“Mom. Loved. Baths. This is a photo of my Mom’s bath with my Dad’s artwork hung right above it. Yes, Jason is an amazing artist! I used to dip my feet in the tub while Mom bathed. She would play with my little feet that dangled in the warm water.”
A post shared by P (@akr.par) on Mar 22, 2017 at 11:25am PDT
“This phrase, whether written or spoken must never be taken for granted (I adore her handwriting).”
A post shared by P (@akr.par) on Mar 23, 2017 at 11:38am PDT
Fans who are following Paris’s project are sharing their own memories of Amy in the comments section of Instagram. One woman wrote, “I knew she loved baths. It is something we had on common. And I think of her during my daily soak.” Another shared, “Your mom baked a pie for me once and I flew from Toronto to Chicago to get it. We walked and talked for a few hours and made a great connection.”
Take a look at Amy’s original 1,2,3, series.
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