Nearly a year after the Turning Point USA founder’s death, his widow discussed grief, motherhood and moving forward in a new essay

NEED TO KNOW

• Erika Kirk is sharing how Usha Vance’s advice helped her navigate grief after her husband’s death
• Charlie Kirk was fatally shot during a campus event, and the suspect is now facing trial on a charge of aggravated murder
• Turning Point USA will honor Charlie Kirk with a memorial event on the first anniversary of his death

Erika Kirk is sharing the advice Usha Vance gave her following the death of her husband, Charlie Kirk, last year.

In a guest essay published Monday, Sept. 7, by The New York Times, the 37-year-old CEO of Turning Point USA, opened up about the year since her husband was fatally shot on Sept. 10, 2025. She recalled returning home to Phoenix from Utah the day after his death and facing the immediate reality of having to keep going for herself and for their children.

“The past 24 hours feel like a fever dream as I land in Phoenix from Utah and return home,” Erika wrote. “I get out of the car, and my kids run into my arms. They have no idea where I was or what I was doing. They care only that I am home.”

“I don’t know how I’m going to do this,” Erika told Usha, the wife of Vice President JD Vance, earlier that day.

Usha, 40, responded with an analogy about the chaos of flying with kids and the relief that comes when you know the plane is almost at its destination.

“You know when you’re on an airplane with your kids, and you’re going to land in 15 minutes, but the kids are going crazy, screaming, throwing things, and then the plane lands, and the kids relax, and everything is fine again?” Usha told her. “That’s how it will be. Just get through the next 15 minutes.”

“Her words are seared into my heart,” Erika wrote.

Charlie died at 31 after being shot during a campus event in Utah. Nearly a year later, the case against the suspect, Tyler Robinson, is moving toward trial.

On Sept. 1, Utah Judge Tony Graf ruled that prosecutors had established probable cause for Robinson to stand trial on all seven charges he faces, including aggravated murder. Robinson pleaded not guilty.

The aggravated murder charge could make the 23-year-old eligible for the death penalty if convicted. Prosecutors have argued that the circumstances of the shooting meet the requirements for a capital case, while Robinson’s defense has challenged the state’s evidence and its arguments for seeking the death penalty.

Graf’s ruling came after a five-day preliminary hearing in July and subsequent written arguments and closing arguments from both sides. The judge emphasized that the hearing was only about whether probable cause existed, not whether Robinson was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Meanwhile, Erika is raising their two young children and grieving her loss. In her Times essay, she described confronting Charlie’s absence through the most ordinary objects around their home.

“Eventually, I worked up the courage to go into our bathroom,” she wrote. “I stared at his side of the sink. His toothbrush was still lying on its side, his towel still hanging on the hook. ‘I’ll never touch that towel,’ I told myself.”

She also described standing in their bedroom, looking at his pillow and wondering how long his scent would remain in the sheets.

“I stood there in silence, replaying all of the completely ordinary mornings we woke up there together,” wrote Erika.

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Throughout the year, Erika felt Charlie’s absence at family events, including her birthday, holidays and their children’s birthdays.

“I wished he could’ve seen her,” she wrote of their daughter’s fourth birthday. “She held my arm and kissed me, and in that moment I realized that she was surviving her own little crashing waves, too.”

“The wave still comes, but it’s different now,” she wrote of grief. “A year ago, when I felt it coming over me, I wondered whether it would swallow me completely. Now, I recognize it; sometimes I even welcome it, because for a moment the grief makes Charlie feel impossibly close.”

As she continues to deal with her grief, Erika wrote that she frequently returns to the advice Usha gave her on that first day.

“If you are living through grief, I won’t tell you what to feel or that tomorrow will be better than today. I will tell you what a dear friend told me: Just get through the next 15 minutes,” Erika wrote.

“One day, maybe when you least expect it, you’ll start to see that those 15 minutes hold more than just grief,” Erika continued. “The grief is there, always, but so is the beautiful gift of life.”

Turning Point USA announced that it will host a memorial event in observance of the one-year anniversary of Charlie’s death. Called Freedom Built to Last Honoring Charlie Kirk, the event will be held on Thursday, Sept. 10 at Utah Valley University, the same place where he was killed.

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