Patton Oswalt took to Facebook to share his state of mind on the one-year anniversary of his wife Michelle McNamara’s death.
“It’s awful, but it’s not fatal,” the comedian wrote on his page Friday, before detailing the very ordinary day before discovering McNamara had died.
McNamara, a true-crime writer, died in the couple’s Los Angeles home in April 2016. She was 46.
On Friday, Oswalt revealed he had finally taken off his wedding ring.
“Last night I took off my wedding ring,” he said. “I couldn’t bear removing it since April 21st, 2016. But now it felt obscene. That anonymous poem about the man mourning his dead lover for a year and a day, for craving a kiss from her ‘clay cold lips.’ 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.”
In February, Oswalt shed light on the circumstances of McNamara’s death, saying that the coroner’s office told him that McNamara died from a combination of prescription medications and a heart condition that had not been diagnosed.
According to Oswalt, McNamara suffered from a condition that caused blockages in her arteries, a condition that he and McNamara didn’t know of.
“We learned today the combination of drugs in Michelle’s system, along with a condition we were unaware of, proved lethal,” Oswalt said.
McNamara had taken Aderall, Xanax and fentanyl, which combined with the blockages caused her death.
See his full letter here.