Comedian Patton Oswalt has penned a heartbreaking essay reflecting on the sudden death of his wife in April this year.
Michelle McNamara died in her sleep in April this year, leaving Oswalt to raise their daughter, Alice, seven, on his own.
“I was half of an amazing parenting team, except we weren’t equals,” Oswalt writes, adding that he feels like “a walk-on character is being asked to carry an epic film after the star has been wiped from the screen”.
“I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I want to tune out the world and hide under the covers and never leave my house again and send our daughter, Alice, off to live with her cousins in Chicago, because they won’t screw her up the way I know I will. Somebody help me! I can’t. I can’t. I can’t,” he writes.
Despite this heartbreaking admission, he says he will push forward, but still mourns the future he and his wife had planned.
“I was looking forward to spending my life with the single most original mind I’d ever encountered. And now? Gone. All gone.”
“I’m going to keep going forward, looking stupid and clumsy and inexperienced at first, then eventually getting it, until the next jolt comes, and the next floor drops out from under me, until there are no more floors.”
