Grief and faith are walking hand in hand for Erika Kirk, widow of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. Less than two weeks after her husband’s assassination during a campus event in Utah, Erika has revealed she now wears the blood-stained St. Michael pendant that was torn from his neck as medics fought to save his life.

The small cross still carries traces of blood in its crevice — a painful reminder of the night the 36-year-old lost her husband, but also a sacred symbol of her conviction that Charlie’s life and death remain in God’s hands.

In an interview with the New York Times, Erika explained that both she and Charlie had often spoken of the dangers surrounding his work. Friends had even heard him suggest he might one day die a violent death.

The night before the Sept. 10 shooting, the couple met a faith leader in Phoenix to pray ahead of Charlie’s upcoming tour of more than 20 college campuses. Erika admitted she was anxious: his appearances regularly attracted hostile crowds, and he had received multiple death threats over the past year. He had been traveling with a security team for months, but Erika pleaded with him to wear a bulletproof vest.

When he declined, their friend suggested he speak from behind bulletproof glass. Charlie’s reply was steady but sobering: “Not yet.” Confident in his security team, he pressed on toward Utah Valley University, where an assassin’s bullet ended his life.

After the shooting, a sheriff advised Erika not to view Charlie’s body. She refused. “With all due respect, I want to see what they did to my husband,” she said. At the hospital, she kissed him goodbye.

What she saw gave her unexpected peace: “His eyes were semi-open, 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.”

Her words echo the Christian conviction of 2 Corinthians 5:8: “We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.”

The young mother of two admits the aftermath has been crushing. She still cannot bring herself to wash the towels Charlie used during his last shower and avoids the couple’s bedroom, rotating where she sleeps instead.

Yet amid that darkness, she continues to step into leadership. This week, Erika was named the new chair of Turning Point USA, the conservative youth movement her husband founded in 2012.

In her grief, Erika has been comforted by unexpected gestures. She recalled meeting Charlie in 2018 at a Turning Point event, and she shared how President Donald Trump — who has known her since her Miss Arizona days in 2012 — has personally called her twice since the shooting.

“Charlie was like a son to him,” Erika said. When Trump offered support, she replied, “Could we continue the conversations Charlie had with you?” His response: “Of course.”

She added, “Trump’s tone was soft and embracing. I could tell he wanted to hug me.”

Perhaps most strikingly, Erika has rejected calls to seek the death penalty for her husband’s alleged killer, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson.

“I want the government to decide this,” she explained. “I do not want that man’s blood on my ledger. 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?”

Her words reflect the radical forgiveness of Christ, who said in Matthew 5:44: “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Two days after Charlie’s death, Erika delivered a raw, 15-minute speech without notes — just as he would have. Now, as she prepares for his funeral, she says the Bible is her anchor and that even this tragedy falls within God’s plan.

In her pendant, she wears both the blood of her husband and a reminder of the victory of Christ. Out of the ashes of violent loss, Erika’s testimony is pointing countless hearts back to the One she believes received Charlie with a smile into heaven.