"It's been a crazy month"

Asmongold returned to streaming after a two-week absence and told his audience that his father had died. He described the experience bluntly: "Dying is really complicated. Oh my god, there's so much paperwork with it." His father was 78, had pancreatic cancer, and had been through pneumonia six times. Asmongold said he believed his father simply decided "it's time to clock the fuck out." Two doctors had told him it wasn't a matter of if but when his father would leave the hospital; the next day they called to say he probably wouldn't come out at all. Asmongold was there through hospice until the end.

A lifetime of caregiving

The death of his father means Asmongold has now lost both parents, and he is an only child. That fact led him to reflect on a pattern that has defined most of his adult life: caregiving. When he was 15, his family was in a serious car accident. His mother broke her wrist and suffered what he described as a heart attack during surgery; she was "never the same" afterward. From that point, he began helping take care of her. By his early twenties, her condition had deteriorated enough that he could not move out or pursue his own ambitions. "I didn't really have funds to help her any other way," he said. "I had to take care of her." That lasted from roughly age 23 until she passed away when he was 31.