During the Sunday, September 21, public memorial service for the late Charlie Kirk, his wife, Erika Kirk (née Frantzve) publicly forgave the man allegedly responsible for her husband’s death.
“I forgive him because it is what Christ did,” Erika, 36, said during her husband’s service, held at the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. “The answer to hate is not hate.”
During her remarks, Erika also urged those in attendance to follow her husband’s example as a wife and a husband.
“Please be a leader worth following,” she told the thousands of attendees. “Your wife is not your servant. Your wife is not your employee. Your wife is not your slave. She is your helper. You are not rivals. You are one flesh, working together for the glory of God.”
Charlie, a conservative activist and the founder of right-wing organization Turning Point USA, was shot and killed on September 10 while speaking at Utah Valley University. He was 31.
“Charlie loved life. He loved his life, he loved America, he loved nature which always helped him closer to God,” Erika said during an X livestream two days later, breaking her silence on her husband’s passing. “He loved the Chicago Cubs and my goodness did he love the Oregon Ducks.”
In addition to Erika, Charlie is survived by the couple’s two kids.
“Most of all Charlie loved his children and he loved me with all of his heart and I knew that everyday. He made sure I knew that everyday,” Erika added in her September 12 statement. “Everyday he would ask me, ‘How can I serve you better? How can I be a better husband? How can I be a better father?’ … He was a such a good man. He still is such a good man. He was the perfect father. He was the perfect husband.”
Erika also revealed how her children had been coping with the news.
“When I got home last night,our daughter just ran into my arms and I talked to her and she said, ‘Mommy, I miss you,’” she recalled. “I said, ‘I miss you too, baby,’ and she goes, ‘Where’s Daddy?’ How do you tell a 3-year-old? And I said, ‘Daddy loves you so much, baby, he’s on a work trip with Jesus so he can afford your blueberry budget.’”
Erika, who has been named the new CEO of Turning Point, has since been candid about the final moments she shared with Charlie.
“His eyes were semi-open,” Erika recalled of seeing Charlie’s body in a The New York Times interview published earlier on Sunday. “He had this knowing, Mona Lisa-like half-smile, like, he died happy. Like Jesus rescued him. The bullet came, he blinked, and he was in heaven.”
Erika had told the outlet that she was supposed to accompany Charlie to Utah for the speaking engagement, in which Charlie was scheduled to debate kids on campus — the first planned stop on a nationwide tour. Instead, Erika stayed in her native Arizona to support her mother amid a hospital stay.
After getting a call from Charlie’s assistant, sharing the news, Erika quickly got on a plane to Utah.
“I’m looking at the clouds and the mountains,” she said to The Times, recalling the moment she learned mid-flight that her husband was declared dead. “It was such a gorgeous day, and I was thinking: This is exactly what he last saw.”
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