Not supposed to be a widow

I should have logged off. I should have known better to take a break from social media and the images going around the past few days. But Charlie Kirk's wife came on national tv for the first time since her husband was slaughtered Wednesday in front of millions. I sat with a knot in my throat as she spoke, eloquently yet shaky at times, speaking about her husband's joys—the utmost of which were his marriage and his children. How was she even standing up and not crumbling to the floor in a puddle of tears? I wondered. Not everyone was moved by Erika's sentiments though.

I went online and read all the nasty comments, from crazy evil people—on X and Facebook and Instagram. I marveled at how they could be so cruel, saying horrific things about a man they didn't know—executed merely for speaking truths and peacefully debating others in this "free" country. They frothed at the mouth saying "he deserved it," posting videos laughing and cackling like wild hyenas delighted with a kill. It was enraging to scroll through it. Where was their humanity? 

I woke up this morning and saw that image of Erika Kirk over her husband's casket. I could feel through that photo how painful it was for her to cry over his body one last time. Some widows don't get a chance for goodbyes. I read even more horrific comments from people spewing hatred at a woman who didn't deserve to be widowed. Her children didn't deserve to lose their daddy. How could they gloat and cheer her pain and suffering? How could anyone wish this woman ill? Many dared to comment how "fake" and "unnatural" he looked.

My face got hot and I wanted to scream, "THAT'S WHAT A COLD, DEAD BODY LOOKS LIKE AFTER DAYS BECAUSE IT HAS NO BLOOD OR LIFE ANYMORE!" I felt again the searing pain in my heart remembering how I leaned over my own husband's casket nearly eight years ago, touching his ice cold hands in that coffin—a coffin identical to the one Charlie Kirk was now lying in. Nobody told me how cold and colorless his body would be, how his fingers felt hard as stone to the touch. Tears sting at my eyes thinking about the notes my four young children wrote to their dad, tucked into that coffin. That was the only goodbye we got—etched out in marker on colored construction paper, forever laying inside that box with him.

Erika didn't get a goodbye either. She wasn't supposed to be a widow. Her kids weren't supposed to go through life without their dad. There should have been decades more birthday dinners, trips and father-daughter dances, recitals and games together and plane rides and Christmas mornings with him. Whoever ultimately pulled that trigger (because I'm just not buying the "wholesome kid turns into crazy Antifa trans killer" thing right now) has no idea the pain and suffering they unleashed onto that family. He didn't deserve it. She didn't deserve it. Kids don’t deserve this.

The other night I went to bed wondering how we will ever get over this? How can we all go on, looking past an evil like this, pretending like one side isn't regurgitating hatred at the other side and vice verse? Hearing Erika speak, invoking Jesus Christ, sharing her sufferings out loud with us, promising to continue on a mission to preach about how Jesus saves—it gave me a little hope. How can she be so strong? She spoke with confidence about how her husband was now with his Savior. That's the goal, "to make Heaven crowded,” she said. Her voice filled with conviction and strength, "Our world is filled with evil, but our God is so good."  

She wasn't supposed to be a widow, no. But she sure is showing us all what kind of strength and perseverance it takes to be one.