film / tv / substack / social media / lists / web / celeb / pajiba love / misc / about / cbr
film / tv / substack / web / celeb

pattonmichelle.jpg

Patton Oswalt Wrote a Heartbreaking Obituary for His Wife

By Courtney Enlow | Celebrity | May 3, 2016 |

By Courtney Enlow | Celebrity | May 3, 2016 |


On April 21, the near-universally beloved around these parts Patton Oswalt lost his wife, true crime writer Michelle McNamara, for reasons we don’t yet know and most of us still wouldn’t understand even if we did. Death is senseless and strange, and leaves the rest of us confused, lost and different for being touched by it but still remaining.

Oswalt hasn’t said much publicly since her loss, as we can all understand. But today, at Time, he wrote an obituary for his love, saying “She hasn’t left a void. She’s left a blast crater.” Hug your loved ones when you’re done.

I loved her. This is the first time I’ve been able to use “I” writing this. Probably because there hasn’t been much of an “I” since the morning of April 21. There probably won’t be for a while. Whatever there is belongs to my daughter—to our daughter. Alice.

Five days after Michelle was gone, Alice and I were half-awake at dawn, after a night of half-sleeping. Alice sat up in bed. Her face was silhouetted in the dawn light of the bedroom windows. I couldn’t see her expression. I just heard her voice: “When your mom dies you’re the best memory of her. Everything you do and say is a memory of her.”

That’s the kind of person Michelle created and helped shape.

That was Michelle. That is Michelle.

I love her.

You can read the whole thing here.