Patton Oswalt Writes A Touching Note On The 1 Year Anniversary Of Wife’s Death

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since Patton Oswalt’s wife tragically died in her sleep. Michelle McNamara passed away on April 21st, 2016 and left behind Oswalt and their 8-year old daughter Alice.

Now a single father, Oswalt took to his Facebook to post a touching message about his deceased wife.

The 48-year-old comedian wrote, “One year in. Another year starting. It’s awful, but it’s not fatal.”

“I stopped on the way home to buy Michelle an Americano and left it on her bedside table around 9:30 a.m. Went up to my office, did some writing, answered some e-mails, Tweeted some thoughts on Prince dying,” he wrote. “There was an art show at Alice’s school in the afternoon and my wife and I were going to go, get dragged around the room by Alice as she chattered about her artwork and the work of her classmates. Except instead I came back down into the house and the life I knew was gone.”

He continued, “I’m one year into this new life — one I never even imagined, and I can imagine some pretty pessimistic and dark contingencies, some stomach-freezing ‘what ifs.’ But not this one. This one had such a flat, un-poetic immediacy. The world gazes at you like a hungry but indifferent reptile when you’re widowed.”

The King of Queens star took off his wedding ring for the first time too.

“Removing the ring was removing the last symbol of denial of who I was now, and what my life is, and what my responsibilities are,” he says. “I put the ring in this little box I’d had made … and filled with it random trinkets and scraps of our life leading up to marriage. The first movie we went to after moving in with each other, the first movie premiere we went to, hotel keys and love notes and pictures.”