Amy Krouse Rosenthal was a children’s book author and memoirist who wrote a devastating dating profile her husband shortly before her death from ovarian cancer earlier this year. Her daughter, Paris Rosenthal, is continuing her final project.
Rosenthal began Project 1,2,3 a few months before her death. Every day at 1:23 pm she posted a list of three ideas to Instagram with the intention of going 123 days. The images created are mostly collage and drawings in a simple notebook:
On Day 61, she announced that she would be taking a break from posting as her energy and focus was needed for other things:
About a month later, Paris announced she’d be taking over her mom’s project and finishing the 123 days with a daily memory of her mother, posted at 1:23 pm:
In an essay for Today, Paris wrote that she’d been assisting her mom with Project 13 throughout her illness:
I helped her solidify which concept to post that day. I helped draw out the ideas when her handwriting failed her. I helped take the photos to post when her energy was limited. I was honored to be mom’s helper, to say the least. I watched the really good days of the project, but I also watched the project come to an end when Amy realized “there are other things I need to be tending to, creating and focusing on with my limited time,” as quoted in her post informing people that the project was ending.
Each post Paris has shares represents a memory of her mother and something they shared, an incredibly sweet way of honoring her legacy: