Charlie Kirk

I will never be able to adequately voice how close to me and my family’s collective souls, this global tragedy, Charlie’s assassination, has hit. Certainly nothing like the unimaginable that his wife Erika, his children, and extended family must be enduring, for whom we will always pray deeply. My wife, Gada, and our three children, our family, mourns with you.

I’ve known Charlie for over a decade since he founded Turning Point USA when our mutual friends Foster and Lynn Friess introduced me to him. I will eternally count among my greatest blessings in life having been able to share so much time in public and privately with Charlie in so many roles. I and Gada, have said countless times what an amazing example he is for our children, all near pre and post college ages, the generation to which Charlie was brilliantly laser focused. To our family, his values, his righteousness, his trust, exemplified the greatness of America.

Charlie is and will always be truly a force of nature, a national treasure, that touched every one of us. In his life, cut short today, he has done and will continue to do more to remind us of God, His mercy, His humanity, freedom, character, and America’s undying legacy than anyone with whom I’ve had the honor to work so close. Every time we spoke he reminded me, said and unsaid, of why America’s greatest days were yet to come and that we must believe in the next generation- his generation – our collective future of our nation.

Taking care of him and his family reminded me more than any American I know, why I wanted to be a doctor and why I chose primary care. He always inspired me, as he did so many others to do what we love for the people and the country we love compassionately and fearlessly. He is a man of God and faith, a selfless leader, who worked for others so they could realize the best of themselves and of our nation. Charlie reminds us all why Americans, our families, should take care of one another in every way.

As I think about my children, Charlie’s undying legacy, his inspiration, will now be divinely inspired to lead us from Heaven so that his work will continue. The generations he speaks to, on campuses and off, owe it to his work. Owe it to our nation. To our collective values of love and freedom to use his force of nature to renew our common humanity and renew the freedoms that bind us.

Charlie, we love you, I can never express enough as your friend, doctor, compatriot in spirit for our nation, how I, we, will always, forever, miss you.

Faithfully, Zuhdi