2016 has been a real kick to the nuts in general, but few of us have had it as rough as Patton Oswalt, who lost his wife Michelle McNamara earlier in the year. Oswalt has been vocal about dealing with his grief in the months since his wife’s sudden passing, relying on his comedy to cope and most recently, penning a heart-wrenching profile in the New York Times.
Grief was once again the topic of conversation when Oswalt visited Jimmy Fallon Wednesday night, as he recounted his Emmy win and almost breaking down mid-speech as he realized he wasn’t going to get to hang out with his wife afterward. He explained the way his grief has adapted over the course of the past six months, saying, “A couple of months ago if I started to cry or have a moment when I missed her, it was for a reason like oh, she loved this Wilco song or oh, I remember us taking this drive.”
But now, he continues, “Grief will make me cry, I have no idea why I’m doing it, because it so knows all the triggers, but it wants to surprise me, so I’ll be like waiting for an app to update, and I don’t know why but I started crying thinking, there’s apps on her phone that will never update again. Like it was the dumbest thing, so now I’m like the Hulk of crying. Like I don’t know when I’m going to Hulk out crying for nothing.”
It’s great that Oswalt is able to find sanity in jokes, but you also have to hope that the poor guy is able to find happiness again some day. He’s got a rough road ahead of him.
