Charlie Kirk memorial live updates as service honors conservative activist

The New York Times that was published Sunday, Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika Kirk, said that when she arrived at the Utah hospital after he was shot, she was warned against seeing his body. But, she said she told officials, “I want to see what they did to my husband.”

“His eyes were semi-open,” Kirk told the Times. “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.”

She said she had not kissed him before he left that morning, and she kissed him then.

Erika Kirk told the Times about how she and Charlie met and their relationship. 

“I’m not saying he was perfect, by any means,” she said. “But I knew my expectations and role, and he knew his. I wasn’t going to be the nagging wife who he wouldn’t want to come home to. I wanted to create a sacred landing space for him. And I think that’s why he was always eager to come home.”

Erika Kirk also said she did not want to be the one who decided if the alleged shooter got the death penalty. 

“I’ll be honest. I told our lawyer, I want the government to decide this. I do not want that man’s blood on my ledger,” she said. “Because when I get to heaven, and Jesus is like: ‘Uh, eye for an eye? Is that how we do it?’ And that keeps me from being in heaven, from being with Charlie?”