Erika Kirk describes first 24 hours after Charlie’s death as ‘fever dream’ in new op-ed

PHOENIX, ARIZONA: Erika Kirk has opened up about the first hours after her husband Charlie Kirk was shot and killed, recalling the moment she returned home to their children and struggled to process what had happened.

In a New York Times op-ed published on Monday, September 7, Erika, 37, described the 24 hours after Charlie’s death on September 10, 2025, as a “fever dream” as she traveled from Utah back to Phoenix.

Erika Kirk recalls returning home after Charlie Kirk’s death

Erika wrote that when she got out of the car, her children ran into her arms. They did not know where she had been or what she had been doing. They only cared that she was home.

But walking through the front door brought another wave of emotion. “As I walk to the front door, there’s a tightening in my chest I don’t recognize. Is this what grief feels like?” Erika wrote.

She then sat on the couch where Charlie had been just two nights earlier, watching the Cubs with their children. “I feel a wave building inside me, and I know it’s about to crash,” she wrote.

Usha Vance gave Erika Kirk advice she never forgot

During those first hours, Erika said she turned to Usha Vance, the wife of Vice President JD Vance, for comfort.

As Usha held her hand, she compared the moment to being on an airplane with children who are struggling during the final minutes before landing.

“Just get through the next 15 minutes,” Usha told her, according to Erika. 

“Her words are seared into my heart,” Erika wrote. That idea became something Erika returned to as she dealt with the days and months that followed.

Erika Kirk avoided Charlie Kirk’s bedroom for months

Erika also described the first time she worked up the courage to enter the bedroom she had shared with Charlie. She stood by his side of the bed and looked at his pillow, wondering how long his scent could remain in the sheets.

She remembered the ordinary mornings they had shared before the reality of his death settled in.

“I wasn’t ready to be there,” she wrote.

Instead, Erika turned off the light and climbed into bed with her 3-year-old daughter, again telling herself to get through the next 15 minutes. She later admitted that she avoided the bedroom for months and struggled through the family's first holidays and milestones without Charlie.

Erika Kirk says grief changed from surviving to living

Erika said grief eventually changed the way she viewed time.

“Grief is strange. Time continues even when every part of you wants it to pause or, better yet, rewind,” she wrote.

At first, she said she needed to survive the next 15 minutes. Over time, she came to believe Charlie would want her to live them.

Erika said she felt “blessed” to have been Charlie’s wife during their four years of marriage. The couple married in 2021 in Scottsdale, Arizona, and had two children.

“To the world, he was Charlie Kirk. But to me, he was the love of my life. To our children, he was the center of their world,” she wrote.

Erika has since stepped up as CEO of Turning Point USA and vowed to continue the organization's mission.