Katie Couric on Starting Over & Finding Love Again After Losing 1st Husband to Cancer
When Katie Couric lost her husband, Jay Monahan, to colon cancer in 1998 the country mourned alongside her. In the twenty years since his passing, the mother of two has found love again with John Molner, but she is not afraid to admit that she misses her first husband.
In an Instagram post shared on the anniversary of Monahan’s death she wrote a simple caption, “Jay Monahan January 9, 1956-January 24, 1998 Twenty years ago today. We miss you.” He is pictured holding one of their two daughters.
Since his death, and her sister’s just three years later, Couric has worked tirelessly to raise awareness and fund research to help battle cancer. She is the co-founder of Stand Up 2 Cancer, the National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance, and the Jay Monahan Center for Gastrointestinal Health.
“I felt so powerless as I watched this disease take the lives of two people who meant the world to me,” she wrote on an Instagram post. “I wanted to help spare other families the terrible heartbreak mine had endured, and I realized that new treatments had to be developed more quickly for the patients who needed them.”
She just hopes that if Monahan were still alive that he would be proud of all of the work she has done to help others avoid the fate that her family has had to endure.
She said, “I hope he would think that the work that I’m doing — whether it’s in colon cancers or in other cancers, to save future Jay Monahans from experiencing the same fate that he did — is worthwhile and important.”
Couric has since remarried her now-husband John Molner whom she met through a mutual friend. While she loves being married to Molner, she said it took her a while to be ready for marriage again.
“I’m not a solitary person. I like company. And John is so funny. He’s just got this incredibly dry and wry sense of humor, and he doesn’t take himself too seriously. And he’s just fun to be around,” she said. “He had me at hello.”
Even in her new marriage the holiday season still holds difficult memories, but she said it gets easier as each year passes.
“I’ve had 19 Thanksgivings and Christmases since (Jay) died. Many of them have been full of joy and laughter; the days, months and years of living have made me forget when sleep provided the only refuge and the first few seconds of wakefulness were quickly invaded by a familiar sense of dread.”
Couric has found new love but hasn’t forgotten her first. “I now have a new husband, a wonderful person I adore, who is warm and wise and so funny,” she said of Molner.
“He’s different from Jay, but I think Jay would approve. I think they would have been friends. His greatest gift has been allowing me to love them both.”
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