As Erika Kirk stepped onto the stage during the funeral of her husband, Charlie Kirk, Laura Stucki, who was among the thousands in attendance, quickly formed an impression of the mourning widow.

Dressed in a striking white suit, 37-year-old Erika approached the podium, periodically pausing to gaze at the cheering audience. As tears rolled down her cheeks, she appeared to offer a silent prayer.

For many, this was their first glimpse of the woman behind the conservative figure known for engaging college students in debates across the nation.

Laura, a mother of seven from Idaho, found herself encountering Erika for the first time and, like many others, questioned the sincerity of the grieving mother’s demeanor.

“I just felt she seemed insincere,” Laura, 38, shared with the Daily Mail. “It felt staged, as if she wasn’t truly grieving. How could she maintain such composure and deliver a speech with such poise?”

“She appeared far more composed than I would expect a grieving wife to be,” Laura concluded.

Erika’s husband was shot dead on a Utah college campus on September 10 during a Turning Point USA event. His funeral was 11 days later. Since then Erika embarked on a journey across the country, joining podcasts and panels to keep his legacy alive. 

Five weeks after Kirk’s death, Laura’s husband, Brandon, took his own life after years of suffering from depression, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue. He was 41. 

Forty-eight hours after his suicide, Laura found herself in her kitchen laughing with one of her seven children. She found herself being able to carry on with life and continue with her duties as a mother, driving around to meet her family’s needs. 

She said wasn’t a puddle of grief, stuck in bed, and unable to function like the stereotypical widow she imagined. 

Laura didn’t understand how she was able to do it but she did. It felt like an out-of-body experience.

And that’s when she understood Erika. 

‘I was brought back to my judginess of Erika Kirk,’ Laura said. ‘And I felt really bad.’ 

Laura has since taken to social media to write a post to Erika to personally apologize for her preemptive judgment before she truly understood what the mother-of-two was dealing with. 

‘Now, I understand,’ she wrote. 

‘I know now why you were able to stand, to speak, to seem okay, because I know that there are times I am walking, talking, singing… just being, and I look okay.’ 

She suspects Erika is like her: Ugly crying in the car and in the shower when no one is looking, and being hit with waves of grief out of nowhere. 

Laura pointed to another similarity the two women, who have never met, have in common – the support group they have around them. 

For Erika, she had Charlie’s fans and the Donald Trump Administration supporting her, including Vice President JD Vance. 

For Laura, she has family and friends and those who offered her prayers, which she said she could feel holding her up.

‘You think about the community Erika Kirk has and the thousands of people who were praying for her. And I know I was held up by the prayers of people around me… She had a nation praying for her. 

‘So, of course, she could go out and speak and seem okay because she was being held up.’ 

Laura regrets her initial judgment towards Erika and said most of those criticizing the new CEO of Turning Point USA just don’t understand the experience. 

‘I think anybody who’s judging her grieving process or how she’s grieving, unless you’ve lost a spouse or a very, very close loved one suddenly, don’t judge,’ Laura told the Daily Mail. 

‘[Grief] doesn’t have a timeline. It doesn’t look the same for everyone. You don’t know the prayers or the community that are or aren’t supporting them. From my perspective, judging grief is a pretty shallow place to judge.’ 

Laura and her seven children, who are aged between four and 15, are still grieving the loss of Brandon. 

The mother-of-seven said he had been suffering from depression since adolescence and was dealing from several autoimmune diseases that sometimes left him bedbound with ‘pretty significant pain’ for the last 15 years. 

‘Depression is a very mean monster,’ she said. 

She believes his mental and physical struggles played a role in his decision to take his own life in mid-November.  

‘It was a shock,’ she told Daily Mail. ‘I never thought he’d actually take his own life.’ 

Occasionally, Brandon would tell her he wished he had an ‘off-switch,’ so he could ‘power down for a little while.’ 

‘He’s like: “I don’t want to die, I just wish I could like pause or power down,”‘ she recalled. ‘[He was] drained and worn down… It was never a kill myself type of thing, you know?

‘He made a choice that he can’t undo. And I fully believe he would undo it if he could.’ 

The college sweethearts had already battled so much together, including four years of infertility. 

A few years into their marriage, the couple decided they wanted to try for children – something they both longed for. 

The first time she got pregnant, she miscarried early on, devastating them both.  

They suffered another miscarriage, then a third. The latter one hit harder. The day before, they had announced on social media that they were expecting. 

‘I had always wanted to be a mom. He’d always wanted to be a dad. And this was kind of the first time that I thought: “Oh wow, I guess this might not be easy,”‘ she told Daily Mail. 

They suffered another blow when Laura was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or more commonly known as PCOS, which can decrease a woman’s chances of getting pregnant. 

Brandon also underwent testing much later and found out that he was also contributing to their infertility issues. 

Doctors put Laura on a medication for six months, telling her she had half the year to get pregnant or they’d have to switch methods. Luckily, on her sixth month, she fell pregnant. 

‘I was so sick. I was so sick with our oldest,’ she told Daily Mail. 

‘Like I threw up one to seven times a day for 16 or 17 weeks. I know a lot of other people have way worse pregnancies, but I just remember being so grateful every time I threw up. I didn’t even care. I was just like: “Yay, the baby’s still there.”‘ 

Laura then faced more turmoil when she got into a three-car crash while 36 weeks pregnant, which started contractions.

She was rushed to the emergency room and thankfully she was fine and later gave birth to a healthy boy. 

Three months later, she fell pregnant again and gave birth to her second child, but then she later suffered another miscarriage. Thankfully, that would be the last of their fertility issues, as babies three to seven had no issues. 

The couple went on to homeschool their children, with Brandon leading the schooling.   

‘He was an amazing teacher,’ Laura said. ‘He could take any concept and break it down for even the smallest of minds, and it was amazing to watch and hear.’ 

Brandon, whom she was married to for 20 years, also owned a consulting business, where he went into companies and helped them fix problems. 

He also did all the cooking and grocery shopping, while leaving the car maintenance to his wife. 

Laura was the one who found her husband after his suicide, and said she broke the news to her children as ‘careful as I could.’ 

And Laura doesn’t allow herself to dwell on hindsight and the signs she may or may not have missed. 

‘Hindsight is what it is, but it’s not real,’ she said. 

She believed she didn’t see it coming due to the frog and the pot theory:  putting a frog in a pot of water and slowly heating it up, the animal won’t jump out and will eventually die without realizing it was in danger. 

‘I was in the pot with him, so to speak,’ she said. 

‘So gradual changes that happen, you don’t see certain things as clearly as I do now.’ 

She hopes one day that men will be more open about their struggles and that society continues to encourage them to do so. 

‘They need more friendships and opportunities to cultivate that and to find peace and joy in life outside of work and providing,’ she said. 

‘So many men feel their life is measured by their career, health, and how they provide. Our lives have worth because of so much more than that – just because you exist you have worth!’ 

For now, she’s going to remember her husband for what he was: A good friend, a great dad, an amazing cook, and an inquisitive learner.

And she’s going to take her grief one day at a time. 

‘I plan on taking all the good he gave me and make a beautiful life for me and our kids. I also know that is what he would want. I wish he would have stayed to see it, but I hope he is at peace and continues to watch us from the other side,’ she added,  

A GiveSendGo campaign has been created for the family to help support them. So far it has raised nearly $30,000 of its $75,000 goal. 

Daily Mail reached out to Erika for comment. 

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or actions, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Line at 988.