Tim Allen has forgiven the man responsible for his father’s death after being inspired by Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk (née Frantzve).
During an emotional eulogy at her late husband’s memorial service on Sunday, September 21, Erika, 36, said she had forgiven the man suspected of killing the conservative political commentator earlier this month.
“I forgive him because it is what Christ did. The answer to hate is not hate,” she said at the ceremony held at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.
On Thursday, September 25, Allen, 72, shared in an X post that Erika’s grace has allowed him to forgive the drunk driver who caused his father’s death more than 60 years ago.
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“When Erika Kirk spoke the words on the man who killed her husband: ‘That man… that young man… I forgive him.’ That moment deeply affected me,” the Shifting Gears actor wrote.
“I have struggled for over 60 years to forgive the man who killed my Dad. I will say those words now as I type: ‘I forgive the man who killed my father,’” Allen continued.
“Peace be with you all,” the Home Improvement star concluded his post.
Allen was just 11 when his father, Gerald M. Dick, a real estate agent, died in a November 1964 car accident after being struck by a drunk driver.
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“My dad had taken six kids and my mom to a Colorado football game and on the way home, middle of the afternoon, a guy swerved across the I-70,” the comedian recalled the incident in a 2006 interview on Inside the Actors Studio.
Allen said his father “broke his neck and died in my mom’s lap, right there.”
The actor said he was not in the car with his family at the time. “I generally would have been with him. This is one of those days I went down to the neighbor’s [house],” he said.
“If you haven’t had a death in your family, it changes every single thing … from your cells and DNA turns a different color,” Allen said. “Every single thing in my life changed. I knew the moment he was dead, he was dead, and it was not for four hours that I found out.”
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In a May interview on the “The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe” podcast, Allen said he knew something was awry on the day his father died, but he didn’t know what.
“I’m walking down to my house, knowing something terrible had happened even though I didn’t know it,” he said. “I get to the house, there’s police and my uncle was there and said, ‘Man up, your mom needs you right now, so no crying.’”
