Erika Kirk has reflected on the practical realities of life without her husband, Charlie Kirk, as the first anniversary of his murder approaches.
In an essay published Sunday in The New York Times entitled “What I’ve Learned About Grief,” Kirk recalled returning home to her children on Sept. 11, 2025, the day after the Turning Point USA founder was shot and killed.
She remembered sitting on the same couch where he had watched the Chicago Cubs with their children just two nights earlier and telling Second Lady Usha Vance that she did not know how she was going to manage.
Vance gave her a simple piece of advice: “Just get through the next 15 minutes.”
For all the things that divide us, grief is a universal language and a defining part of the human experience. At some point, every one of us will love someone we have to say an earthly goodbye to.
I am still learning how to walk through each day carrying the grief I feel for my… pic.twitter.com/6hx6ZR1Tq5
— Erika Kirk (@MrsErikaKirk) September 7, 2026
Kirk said that advice became a way of managing the days and months that followed.
She also described returning to the couple’s bedroom and finding Charlie’s belongings exactly as he had left them.
His toothbrush was still beside the sink and his towel remained hanging on its hook.
“I’ll never touch that towel,” Kirk recalled thinking.
For months afterward, she largely avoided their bedroom.
Kirk also detailed the series of milestones the family has experienced without Charlie, including birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and their wedding anniversary.
NEW: Charlie Kirk’s parents, Robert and Kathryn Kirk, arrived at a Utah courthouse for the final day of Tyler Robinson’s preliminary hearing.
The judge is expected to decide whether prosecutors presented enough evidence for Robinson, the man accused of fatally shooting the… pic.twitter.com/xG0l7eOer4
— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 1, 2026
She returned to Maine with their children for the family’s annual trip without him and attended the preliminary hearing for the man accused of murdering her husband.
Kirk said she is sometimes asked whether the murder has made her angry with God.
“Occasionally, I’m asked whether I’m angry at God. I say no,” she wrote.
“I know my husband is in heaven, but I ache for him to be here,” she added.
Kirk said she has gradually learned that grief does not prevent her from continuing to raise their children or experiencing ordinary moments of happiness.
“I can miss him with every part of me and still laugh with our children,” she wrote. “I can have a broken heart and still experience joy.”
Nearly one year after Kirk’s murder, she said she still relies on the advice Vance gave her immediately after his death.
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