Heartbroken today hearing about Charlie Kirk’s death.

Someone very close to me was a personal friend of his, and watching him grieve this loss is devastating. When the people you love hurt, you hurt too.

What’s equally heartbreaking is seeing people online celebrating this. A father of two was murdered, and some are cheering. That level of hatred is something I can’t understand.

I’ve been writing about my journey from trauma-induced silence to finding my voice - how I spent decades afraid to speak up about anything that mattered. Today, after seeing what happened to Charlie, I’m wondering if I had it right all along. Maybe it really is too dangerous to ever speak out.

As a survivor of violent crime myself, I know this isn’t about the weapon - it’s about the person behind it. It’s about a culture that’s decided some voices don’t deserve to exist.

My heart breaks for his children most of all. Their father died for using his voice, and now they have to grow up in a world where that’s the price of speaking your truth.

Even from outside America, this is shocking. When we start murdering people for their beliefs, we’ve lost something fundamental about what it means to be human.

You can grieve someone’s death while maintaining your own beliefs. You can recognize that violence is wrong without having to agree with every word the victim ever said. That’s just basic decency.