Wednesday, September 10, 2025, won’t be a day we forget — it was a painfully horrible day. A very beloved person was assassinated.
I’m not sure there’s any meaning to what I’m about to write, but it still baffles me. I get chills when I think about it, and it’s hard to explain exactly how I feel.
That Wednesday I won’t forget for a long time. My wife and I decided to hike at Fish Hatchery Park, which felt unusual for that time of year, in summer we usually bike and kayak — but the weather was cooler that day, so we went hiking anyway.
It was midweek and school had already started. The park is usually quiet, especially during the week. The most we see are fellow retirees walking their dogs, and the trail we take isn’t used by many people during the middle of the day on weekdays.
We had hiked partway up the trail and paused to catch our breath and look around. Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone coming down the rest of the trail. My wife and I looked up and saw a young woman. What first caught our attention was the very bright red MAGA hat she was wearing. She was friendly and easy to talk to; our conversation felt natural and pleasant. We were struck by how engaged and aware such a young person seemed to be about events around the country. It was refreshing.
A few hours after we got home we heard the terrible news: Charlie Kirk had been killed. The shooting took place around the time we’d met this young woman at the park.
What keeps coming back to me is that young woman we ran into. The odd circumstances and, even more shockingly, how much she resembled Erika Kirk. Is it a strange coincidence, or a coincidence of God? I keep asking myself what, if anything, we’re supposed to take from this meeting. The whole day felt like a series of “one-in-a-million” moments, and I find it deeply puzzling and continue to search for the reasons why this event took place.
