( REAL SIMPLE ) -- It was mid-December of 2005 . I do n't know why he said it . Author Anne Roiphe 's latest book , `` Epilogue : A Memoir , '' will be released in paperback this fall . I do n't know if a shadow had fallen across him , something appalling he saw out of the corner of his eye . I do n't know if it was just coincidence or intuition that prompted him , but about a week before my seemingly healthy 82-year-old husband suddenly died , he emerged from the kitchen ready to go to his office , his face clean-shaven , his eyes shining , smiling shyly , holding the copy of the Anthony Trollope book he was rereading , and said to me , `` You have made me very happy . You know that you have made me a happy man . '' There I stood in my work outfit , blue jeans and a T-shirt . There I stood with my white hair and my wrinkles and the face I was born with , although now much creased by time , and I felt beautiful . Tell us what makes YOU feel beautiful . `` What ? '' I said . I wanted him to repeat the words . `` You heard me , '' he said and put on his coat and drew his earmuffs out of his pocket . `` Say it again , '' I said . He said it again . `` You 've made me happy . '' We had been married 39 years . We had held hands waiting in hospital corridors while a desperately ill child struggled to breathe and thankfully recovered . We had made financial mistakes together . We had spent hours out in fishing boats . Real Simple : 34 low-cost , make-you-smile ideas . We had raised the children and then second-guessed our choices . We had stood shoulder to shoulder at graduations and weddings and we were well-worn , but still I had made him happy , and I was proud and flushed with the warmth of his words . Real Simple : 10 ways to be happier . I know I looked beautiful that morning . Perhaps not to the young man holding his toddler in his arms who rode the elevator with me ; perhaps not to the friend I met for lunch , a true believer in Botox ; perhaps not to passersby on the street ; but I knew it for a certainty . I was beautiful . Real Simple : How to change things for the better . I do n't believe that inner beauty is sufficient in this cruel world . That 's the pap one tells a child . I do n't believe that positive thinking improves your skin tone or that loving or being loved changes the shape of your nose or restores the thickness and color of hair , but I do know that there is a way of being beautiful , even as age takes its toll , that has something to do with the spirit filling with joy , something to do with the union with another human being , with the sense of having done well at something enormously important , like making happy a man who has made you happy often enough . Ten days after that morning conversation , my husband and I returned from a concert and dinner with friends and walked down our windy block toward our apartment house when suddenly he stumbled and fell and died within minutes . As I waited for the ambulance , I remembered his words , a beauty potion I would take with me into the rest of my life . Get a FREE TRIAL issue of Real Simple - CLICK HERE ! Copyright © 2009 Time Inc. All rights reserved .
About a week before he died , Anne Roiphe 's husband delivered an important message . He told her that she was going to die soon and asked if they could talk about it together. Roiphe said those words were like a beauty potion and made her feel beautiful .