One year after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Erika Kirk has opened up about what she did the day after her husband’s murder and the advice she received from the second lady that helped her survive the first days of grief.
In an essay marking her first year as a widow, Erika Kirk remembered her children running into her arms after she arrived home in Phoenix from Utah on Sept. 11, 2025. The mother also recalled walking through the front door and feeling a tightening in her chest that she had never experienced before.
“I sit on the couch where Charlie sat two nights ago watching the Cubs with our kids. I feel a wave building inside me, and I know it’s about to crash,” Erika Kirk wrote.
Earlier that day, the wife and widow of the Turning Point USA founder had received advice from second lady Usha Vance that would leave a lasting impression on her heart.
Erika Kirk said she confided in Vance that she did not know how she was going to do this. The second lady responded by describing what it is like to fly with children during the final 15 minutes before landing. The children may be screaming and throwing things, she explained, but once the plane lands, the chaos settles.
“That’s how it will be. Just get through the next 15 minutes,” Usha Vance told the grieving widow and mother.
Charlie Kirk was fatally shot at an outdoor event at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, 2025. One year later, the case against Tyler Robinson, who is accused of killing the conservative activist, is moving toward trial after a Utah judge ruled that prosecutors had established probable cause for the case to proceed.
But for Erika Kirk, the year since her husband’s death has been measured less by the court proceedings than by the ordinary moments she has had to learn to experience without her husband.
For months, the widow said she avoided the bedroom she once shared with her husband, reconciling herself to the fact that she would have to confront the pain and the memories, but she would do it gradually.
As time passed and, along with it, the first birthdays, holidays and anniversaries without him, Erika Kirk said she thought of Usha Vance’s advice: Just get through the next 15 minutes.
“Grief is strange. Time continues even when every part of you wants it to pause or, better yet, rewind,” Kirk wrote.
“But the people we love who have passed on would not want us to spend the rest of our lives trying to rewind,” she continued. “At first, I needed to survive the next 15 minutes. Over time, I’ve realized that Charlie would want me to live them.”
She described missing her husband while also experiencing moments of happiness with their children. Sometimes, she wrote, the grief itself could make him feel close to her again.
Despite the waves of pain that come with grief, Erika Kirk has not lost faith in God.
“Occasionally, I’m asked whether I’m angry at God. I say no,” she wrote.
Erika Kirk considers herself blessed to have been Charlie Kirk’s wife and believed he had fulfilled his life’s purpose. She remembered his desire for people who felt lost to discover the hope he had found through faith, and to find meaning beyond what people often turn to for fulfillment.
“To the world, he was Charlie Kirk. But to me, he was the love of my life. To our children, he was the center of their world,” Erika Kirk stated.
The mother of two acknowledged that losing someone you love can make it difficult to understand God’s plan. There can be questions that have no immediate answers and circumstances that remain impossible to fully comprehend.
For Erika Kirk, however, faith does not mean having an answer for every question.
Instead, she wrote that faith means accepting that there will be things people cannot understand and finding peace in that reality.
“I have seen extraordinary good born out of something unimaginably evil. I have watched people return to faith in droves, reconcile with their families and forgive old wounds because of Charlie,” Erika Kirk explained. “I know my husband is in heaven, but I ache for him to be here. Still, I can stand and say without a shadow of a doubt that God is good.”
Days after the TPUSA founder’s assassination, several pastors at churches throughout the country also reported seeing a spike in church attendance, particularly among young adults.
For people experiencing their own grief, Erika Kirk cited the same words of encouragement that helped her survive the earliest moments of her own loss: Just get through the next 15 minutes.
She hopes that those struggling with grief will eventually discover what she has learned: The next 15 minutes can contain more than sorrow.
“The grief is there, always, but so is the beautiful gift of life,” she wrote.
During the memorial service for her husband last year at the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, Erika Kirk publicly forgave the man charged with fatally shooting Charlie Kirk.
Kirk said she forgave Robinson because Jesus Christ forgave those who crucified Him on the cross.
“I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and is what Charlie would do,” she said. “The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the Gospel is love, is always love. Love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.”
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
