Charlie Kirk’s grieving widow, Erika, described the moment she saw her husband’s body in the hospital after the conservative influencer was assassinated — and revealed the “secret” that she kept from him in life.
“His eyes were semi-open and he had this knowing, Mona Lisa-like half-smile. Like he’d died happy. Like Jesus rescued him. The bullet came, he blinked, and he was in heaven,” Erika Kirk said in an emotional interview with the New York Times.
Kirk also revealed the sheriff advised her against seeing her husband’s body due to the damage the bullet had done to his neck.
“With all due respect, I want to see what they did to my husband,” the brave mom of two recalled telling the sheriff.
Kirk said she was able to kiss her beloved goodbye at the hospital, something she had been unable to do that morning as he set off for what would turn out to be his final event, a speaking engagement at Utah Valley University.
Kirk also gave a deeply moving speech at her husband’s enormous memorial service Sunday at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, where she revealed the “secret” she had kept from Charlie.
She described how she looked “directly at my husband’s murdered body” and “saw the wound that ended his life.”
“But there was something else. Even in death, I could see the man that I love. I saw the one, single gray hair on the side of his head, which I never told him about,” she said.
“Now he knows. Sorry, baby, I’m telling you now,” she joked.
Kirk spoke about the smile on Charlie’s face during her powerful address.
“I also saw on his lips the faintest smile. And that told me something important,” she said.
“It revealed to me a great mercy from God in this tragedy. When I saw that, it told me Charlie didn’t suffer. Even the doctor told me — it was something so instant.
“One moment, Charlie was doing what he loved, arguing and debating … he blinked … and saw his savior in paradise,” she added.
“While Charlie died far too early, he was ready to die,” Kirk added.
The newly appointed chairwoman of Turning Point USA, the organization her husband founded, went on to say she forgave his killer.
“He wanted to save young men. Just like the one who took his life,” she said through her tears.
“I forgive him because it was what Christ did. And what Charlie would do.”
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