Erika Kirk shares powerful reflection on grief amid 1-year mark since husband’s death
The widow of Charlie Kirk wrote about how she has navigated the grief as each milestone, holiday, and birthday passed without him for the first time and offered a word of encouragement to anyone else living in grief.
As the one-year mark since Charlie Kirk’s assassination approaches on Sept. 10, Erika Kirk wrote a moving guest essay in The New York Times about what she has learned about grief and the faith she has leaned on in the wake of the tragedy.
She recalled how the day after her husband’s death, she returned home to her children in Arizona.
“As I walk to the front door, there’s a tightening in my chest I don’t recognize. Is this what grief feels like? I sit on the couch where Charlie sat two nights ago watching the Cubs with our kids,” she wrote in the Sept. 7 essay. “I feel a wave building inside me, and I know it’s about to crash.”
She explained that earlier that day, she had been with Second Lady Usha Vance, who offered a word of encouragement and advice that has accompanied her every day since.
Holding her hand, the second lady told her, “You know when you’re on an airplane with your kids, and you’re going to land in 15 minutes, but the kids are going crazy, screaming, throwing things, and then the plane lands, and the kids relax, and everything is fine again? That’s how it will be. Just get through the next 15 minutes.”
In the days that followed, Kirk approached the weight of grief remembering the advice to take things 15 minutes at a time.
“For months, I avoided my bedroom. I told myself it was OK to confront the pain gradually and to sit with each memory as it came to me,” she wrote. “The first Saturday without a love note from him passed. His 32nd birthday. My birthday. Thanksgiving. When I put the Christmas tree together wrong, it made me realize that being a widow means old traditions will need to make room for new ones. The wave crashes on me again and again. Every time, just get through the next 15 minutes.”
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Other major dates came through, including their wedding anniversary and their children’s birthdays. Kirk explained that as time continued on, her perspective about those 15 next minutes began to shift.
“Grief is strange. Time continues even when every part of you wants it to pause or, better yet, rewind. But the people we love who have passed on would not want us to spend the rest of our lives trying to rewind. At first, I needed to survive the next 15 minutes. Over time, I’ve realized that Charlie would want me to live them,” she wrote.
Kirk reflected on her faith life throughout the past year, noting that she is not angry at God. She emphasized that Charlie Kirk wanted to share his faith with people in need and offer the same hope of everlasting life that he had.
“When you lose someone you love, it’s easy to struggle to understand God’s plan. One of the hardest tests of our faith occurs when bad things happen,” she wrote. “True faith means accepting that we won’t get every answer and finding peace in that.”
Kirk also emphasized that she has seen powerful good come from the tragedy, citing familial reconciliation and people returning to faith. Amid the hope, loss, and ache, she wrote, “I can stand and say without a shadow of a doubt that God is good.”
“The wave still comes, but it’s different now,” she explained. “A year ago, when I felt it coming over me, I wondered whether it would swallow me completely. Now, I recognize it; sometimes I even welcome it, because for a moment the grief makes Charlie feel impossibly close.”
Everyone is affected by grief, regardless of their political party or religious beliefs, she wrote. The waves of grief never entirely go away, and they shouldn’t, she continued: “I am learning that grieving Charlie and living life at the same time are part of the rhythm of grief. I can miss him with every part of me and still laugh with our children. I can have a broken heart and still experience joy.
“If you are living through grief, I won’t tell you what to feel or that tomorrow will be better than today. I will tell you what a dear friend told me: Just get through the next 15 minutes. One day, maybe when you least expect it, you’ll start to see that those 15 minutes hold more than just grief. The grief is there, always, but so is the beautiful gift of life.”
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