During the past 11 days of heartache and anger, Erika Kirk has found herself returning, as if by gravitational pull, to a single moment. It is the recollection of how, on what turned out to be the last night of Charlie Kirk, her husband, he was too excited to sleep.
“His adrenal glands were just going off,” she recalled during an hour and a half interview on Thursday, eight days after Mr. Kirk, 31, one of the nation’s pre-eminent conservative influencers and the founder of the youth activist group Turning Point USA, was gunned down while debating students at Utah Valley University.
“He got up and I could hear him eating something in the kitchen. He’d been waiting all summer to begin touring.” The visits to college campuses, she said, “were like an Olympic event for him. He trained for them. He had whiteboard sessions for hours. Mock debates. He was just so excited.”
Mr. Kirk finally fell asleep sometime later, in another bed in the house. Ms. Kirk heard him slip out early the next morning. She texted “I love you” to him before his chartered plane took off for Provo, Utah. A staff member later told her that he had overheard Mr. Kirk proclaiming to the pilot as he disembarked, “Today’s going to be a great day.”
Ms. Kirk, 36, spoke in a composed voice while fighting through tears about a husband lionized on the right as an inspiration to young Republicans and pilloried on the left for his attacks on civil rights, feminism and Islam. She acknowledged her struggle to make sense of an unfathomable tragedy.
“I’m allowing myself to feel this so deeply,” she said, “without medication, without alcohol. The Lord is giving me discernment.”
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The post For Erika Kirk, a Husband’s Life Cut Short by Violence He Seemed to Foresee appeared first on New York Times.
