Delia Ephron on Finding Love After Losing a Spouse Javascript must be enabled to use this site. Please enable Javascript in your browser and try again. × Search search POPULAR SEARCHES SUGGESTED LINKS Join AARP for just $9 per year when you sign up for a 5-year term. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. Leaving AARP.org Website You are now leaving AARP.org and going to a website that is not operated by AARP. A different privacy policy and terms of service will apply. Close
How Delia Ephron 77 Found New Love and a Second Chance at Life
The You ve Got Mail writer s moving memoir Left on Tenth revisits four years of joy and agony
L: Little, Brown / R: Elena Seibert Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. She lost her first husband, Jerry Kass, a playwright and screenwriter and her “soul mate of 37 years,” to prostate cancer in 2015. Still mourning him a year later, she wrote an essay in The New York Times that caught the eye of Peter Rutter, a psychiatrist/Jungian psychoanalyst in the San Francisco Bay area, who emailed her (You’ve got email!). Turns out, she’d briefly dated him when she was 18, after they were introduced by Nora (he remembers loads of details, even meeting her parents, but she has no recollection of him, poor guy). During a long-distance courtship, they quickly fell wildly in love — an experience she describes as “heady, giddy, exhilarating” (“Delia, je t’adore,” he’d email her). But in the midst of their blissful romance, Ephron was diagnosed with the same bone marrow disease that killed her beloved sister. She and Rutter were married in her hospital room, and he stayed by her side through an excruciating series of treatments, a stem cell transplant and a slow recovery. We talked to Ephron about these emotionally wrenching years, what it was like to fall in love again in her 70s and how writing sustains her. Entertainment $3 off popcorn and soft drink combos See more Entertainment offers > Her fantastic pals
One of the things about getting sick is that you begin to understand the things that you did right. And I understood that I have . My girlfriends, they are incredible. Friendship is a special thing. One thing I’d say, when you go on journey like this — and I hope no one else reading this ever does — but if you go through some sort of medical journey, you have to think about who you invite on the trip with you. You have to think about which people will make you feel better. Who will be compassionate and empathetic? If there are people that don’t help you [in that way], make sure they don’t come with you. Peter s support
I had never read all the emails that he sent everyone when I was sick, and one of the really amazing things for me when I was researching the book was to see that he never said, “Oh, God, this is a nightmare.” And it was a nightmare, but he never said that. … He just absolutely refused to be negative. He was so positive, and that was something to find. AARP NEWSLETTERS %{ newsLetterPromoText }% %{ description }% Subscribe and loss and new love, and medicine and miracles and . Recovering forgotten moments
It was a bit of a treasure hunt, because I didn’t realize I was in the hospital for 100 days, and I didn’t remember so much of what happened. [My neighbor] said that when I found out I had leukemia again, I saw her in the lobby and just, like, dragged her up to my apartment and said, “You’ve got to go on this journey with me.” I also told her, “It’s very important that you love me.” When I talked to her for the book, she said, “I’ve never seen anyone as terrified as you were.” How writing heals her
Writing just put that trauma somewhere else. I was able to create something from it. I was able to make something out of this journey through this tunnel. I think if you have a trauma like this, if you can do anything with it, if you can dance it, draw it, paint it, knit it — anything that you can do to take that experience and make something beautiful out of it is really, really helpful. For me, writing is almost my nourishment. I’m someone who likes to be alone in a room for six hours a day. Being a writer is a calling, and it comes first, before almost anything else. What s next
I’m trying to figure out how I might want to adapt this book, either for theater or film. Christina Ianzito is the travel and books editor for aarp.org and AARP The Magazine and also edits and writes health, entertainment and other stories for aarp.org. She received a 2020 Lowell Thomas Award for travel writing. More on entertainment AARP NEWSLETTERS %{ newsLetterPromoText }% %{ description }% Subscribe AARP VALUE & MEMBER BENEFITS See more Health & Wellness offers > See more Flights & Vacation Packages offers > See more Finances offers > See more Health & Wellness offers > SAVE MONEY WITH THESE LIMITED-TIME OFFERS