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Patton Oswalt Pens Heartfelt Tribute to His Late Wife on First Anniversary of Her Death: ‘It’s Awful, But It’s Not Fatal’

Patton Oswalt penned a touching tribute to his late wife, Michelle McNamara, on the first anniversary of her death.

The comedian took to Facebook on Friday, April 21, to open up about his grief, and explain how he and their 8-year-old daughter, Alice, are coping one year after McNamara suddenly passed away.

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“It’s awful, but it’s not fatal,” he wrote before recalling the morning he discovered the love of his life had died.

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“I came back from dropping Alice off at school,” he continued. “I’d let Michelle sleep in. Got our daughter dressed and ready for school — lunch packed, class folder in her backpack. I stopped on the way home to buy Michelle an Americano and left it on her bedside table around 9:30am. Went up to my office, did some writing, answered some e-mails, Tweeted some thoughts on Prince dying. 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.”

Oswalt previously revealed McNamara died from a mix of prescription medications and an undiagnosed heart condition, but at one point even feared she had overdosed.

In his recent post, the 48-year-old admitted he had not been able to remove his wedding ring until now.

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“I couldn’t bear removing it since April 21st, 2016,” he wrote. “But now it felt obscene. I was inviting more darkness. 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 wrote that despite his heartache at losing the woman who brought him “nothing but happiness,” he won’t be spending the day by her grave, and was instead planning on taking Alice to the pet store to buy “worms that grow into beetles.”

“We think of her every day – she’s still so tied into our worlds, in a way that’s encouraging, and energizing … Michelle’s gone but she wasn’t the kind of soul that disappears or dies out.”

McNamara was 46 years old when she died. 

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