Patton Oswalt gave a lovely and incredibly touching interview on Conan on Monday night in which the comedian discussed coping with the unexpected death of his wife, true-crime writer Michelle McNamara, in April. Asked about his recent Emmy win for Best Variety Special, Oswalt explained that he had trouble capturing McNamara’s influence in his acceptance speech, which ended with a very brief tribute to her: “I want to share this with two people: my daughter, Alice, who is waiting at home, and the other one is waiting somewhere else, I hope.”

I was a different, better person from having met her and spent a life with her. And she was the reason that my comedy got better to get me to the point where someone would consider me for an Emmy. It was hard to encapsulate that in a very quick speech. Of anyone I’ve ever been with, especially romantically—people that I’ve gone out with have justifiably pulled the rip cord on me, like “This guy’s nuts.” And she was like, “I can work with this, I think.”

It’s almost impossible to sit through Oswalt’s interview dry-eyed, but if there is any silver lining to be had from all this, it's that Oswalt is honoring his promise to start telling jokes again. “I’m like every bad ’80s sitcom where the dad is raising a kid by himself,” he told Conan O’Brien. “Except my ’80s sitcom sucks. There’s no punchlines. There’s a lot of me eating Cheetos for dinner. I’m waiting for my daughter to turn to the camera and go, ‘No wonder I’m in therapy.’ ”