Erika Kirk, wife of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, is opening up about the way she keeps her late husband close in the wake of his shocking and untimely death.
“To this day, I can’t go into my bedroom,” Erika, 36, told The New York Times in an interview published on Sunday, September 21 — her first since her husband was shot and killed on September 10.
“I’m rotating where I sleep,” she continued.
While the young widow avoids their shared bedroom, she has managed to keep a piece of her husband with her as she navigates the days and weeks following his killing. Now, Erika wears her husband’s pendant of St. Michael — the same necklace he was wearing when he was fatally shot in the neck.
“The medics had ripped it from his body while attempting to stop the bleeding,” The New York Times writes. “A trace of blood remained in the crevice of the cross.”
The Turning Point USA founder was holding a speaking event at Utah Valley University when he was shot in the neck from 200 yards away. The political activist was quickly rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. He was 31.
In the same interview, Erika recalls seeing her husband’s body at the hospital despite a local sheriff urging her not to, due to the severity of her Charlie’s fatal injury.
“With all due respect,” she recalled telling the sheriff, “I want to see what they did to my husband.”
She then recalled to the outlet how her husband’s body looked.
“His eyes were semi-open,” she said. “And 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.”
Two days after her husband’s murder, authorities took a 22-year-old suspect into custody after he turned himself in at the behest of his parents. Despite claims from many prominent Republican politicians, including the president and vice president of the United States, authorities have not found any evidence to suggest the suspected shooter had ties to any far-left groups or left-leaning groups.
“Every indication so far is that this was one guy who did one really bad thing because he found Kirk’s ideology personally offensive,” a person familiar with the ongoing investigation told NBC News on Saturday, September 21.
While eulogizing her husband at a public memorial service held at the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, on Sunday, Erika said she has forgiven the man allegedly responsible for her husband’s death.
“I forgive him because it is what Chris did,” she told the crowd. “The answer to hate is not hate.”
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