Chaz Ebert Remembers Late Husband Roger As ‘The Love Of My Life’

Chaz Ebert didn’t have a traditional love story with her husband of 20 years, film critic Roger Ebert.

They met later in life, marrying when he was 50 and she was 40. But they were inseparable from there on, with Chaz by Roger’s side as he battled thyroid cancer in 2002 and later had his jaw removed.

When Roger died this week, Chaz was again there.

“We were getting ready to go home today for hospice care, when he looked at us, smiled, and passed away,” Chaz Ebert said Thursday in a statement to People.com. “No struggle, no pain, just a quiet, dignified transition.”

Chaz issued a statement on the passing of her husband, saying that he was a beloved husband and stepfather to Sonia and Jay, as well as a grandfather to Raven, Emil, Mark, and Joseph.

“He fought a courageous fight,” Chaz Ebert said. “I’ve lost the love of my life and the world has lost a visionary and a creative and generous spirit who touched so many people all over the world. We had a lovely, lovely life together, more beautiful and epic than a movie. It had its highs and the lows, but was always experienced with good humor, grace and a deep abiding love for each other.

Before his death, Roger Ebert credited Chaz with helping him to continue to live more than a decade after his initial diagnosis.

“This woman never lost her love, and when it was necessary she forced me to want to live,” Ebert wrote in 2012. “She was always there believing I could do it, and her love was like a wind forcing me back from the grave.”

Roger Ebert acknowledged that the description may sound dramatic to some, but anyone who knew Chaz Ebert would understand his feelings. She visited in the hospital every day, even when he was not aware of it, and prepared Christmas and Valentine’s Day baskets for all his nurses.