“God can turn pain into purpose”
In an exclusive Memorial Day interview, Taya Kyle, 43, widow of “American Sniper” Chris Kyle, opens her heart to FIRST about faith, courage and her journey to overcome heartbreak five and a half years after her husband’s tragic death
As a familiar vice of sorrow gripped Taya Kyle’s chest and she felt a wave of despair wash over her, she thought, What’s wrong with me? I should be in less pain by now. But on February 2 of this year, exactly five years after her husband “American Sniper” Chris Kyle, had been tragically shot and killed, grief still burned in Taya’s heart. Tears still blurred her vision as she remembered starting each morning with one of Chris’s long hugs. She still missed how her heart would beat wildly like an excited kid’s each time she’d heard his truck pull into their driveway. Most of all, she still longed to hear his laughter and see his eyes twinkle with mischief.
For 1,825 days, Taya had focused on prayer, loving her two children, helping families of veterans and simply putting
one foot in front of the other. All the while, she had kept her eyes on this date…the day she’d thought she would be “okay” again. But although she still felt those waves of sadness wash over her, Taya realized there was something else woven among them that hadn’t been there before: glimmers of hope. Here, Taya shares how far she’s come in her five-year journey and how she’s continuing to fight her way back to joy.
A heart torn in two
When Taya and Chris fell head over heels in love and were married in 2002, she knew that being the wife of a U.S. Navy SEAL wasn’t going to be a fairy tale. There were agonizing stretches of time when she was left at home alone with their two young children, Angel and Bubba, wondering if Chris (who had been sought after for his skills as a sniper) would return alive from the Iraq War. After 10 years of marriage and Chris serving four grueling tours, Taya was relieved when he retired from the Navy to counsel veterans. Finally, they could have a happy, normal life and raise their kids far from fear and death…or so Taya had thought.
On February 2, 2013, Taya received the news that would change her world forever. Chris and his friend Chad Littlefield were shot and killed by a troubled veteran at a shooting range in Texas. “It was ironic because so many other times I’d feared this moment when Chris was at war, yet now that we were a normal family and so happy with our future before us, my deepest fear had come true,” shares Taya. “The things we worry about never really happen—it’s the things we don’t fathom that can hit us sideways.”
The night Taya was told Chris had been killed, she remembers begging God for there to be some mistake. “I was leaning against the wall outside our kitchen and whispering to God, ‘Okay. Okay. Okay,’” she shares. “I tried to stay calm on the outside, letting none of my pain show. I wanted to be strong because all our loved ones were looking to me.” Drying her tears, Taya walked back into the kitchen and led a prayer for Chris. “I said, ‘I know exactly where he is, but pray that his transition is okay.’”
After the prayer, Taya walked outside, and when she reached the foot of her driveway she broke into a run. “I just knew that I had to escape, I had to be alone,” Taya describes. “Tears flowed and I ran and ran until my lungs started to burn. It was dark and silent in our neighborhood, and I could pretend this horror hadn’t happened.”
Saying the final goodbye
In the days to come, surrounded by loved ones and their Navy SEAL family, Taya pushed her grief aside to plan her husband’s funeral. Chris had been a huge Dallas Cowboys fan, so his service was held on February 11, 2013, at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, with 7,000 people in attendance. “I remember my final minutes with Chris before they closed the casket and the ceremony began,” recalls Taya, softly. “I touched his face and stroked his hair, then whispered, ‘This is it, babe.’ No matter how strongly I still felt him beside me, whatever happens in Heaven, I knew that was my final chance to look at him.”
The following day, the funeral procession journeyed 200 miles to lay Chris to rest in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. Thousands of admirers lined the highway holding signs and waving flags, and at the grave site, Chris was given full military honors. “Once people drifted away, I went to the casket with my kids and had them touch the wood,” shares Taya. “I could hear our hearts whispering goodbye for the very last time.”
Picking up the pieces
In the months that followed, Taya could barely function as life pushed her along without Chris. Showering was a chore, the house felt empty without his laughter, their bed felt cold. In her struggle to heal, Taya sought out counseling and became determined to preserve Chris’s legacy. He’d been in the middle of several projects when he died, including a movie based on his bestselling 2012 autobiography, American Sniper. After many hurdles, the film was finally released in January of 2015, giving Taya a small sense of peace. “His service to our country was his life’s calling,” she says. “But through the film, I wanted people to understand the whole Chris—father, husband, friend, as well as warrior.”
Though she still wrestled with constant grief, Taya also found comfort in continuing the work that had meant so much to Chris—helping veterans and their families. She wrote her own memoir, American Wife, in 2015 and toured the country sharing her story of love and loss. During one speaking engagement, Taya became engrossed by the testimony of another Navy SEAL, Marcus Luttrell, known for the book and movie Lone Survivor. “After trying to save his brothers during a battle in Afghanistan, Marcus was gravely wounded and all he could do was crawl,” Taya describes. Marcus began drawing a line in the sand and would focus only on getting to that line. Once he reached it, he drew another line and another until he got to his rescuers. “That resonated deeply with me,” Taya shares. “I began drawing my own lines in the sand just to get through each day.”
The fear of moving on
One of Taya’s biggest challenges has been the thought of letting go of Chris so her heart can love again. Her thoughts often spiraled back to conversations she and Chris had about her moving on if he were killed at war. “I had a dream a couple years ago where I was 65 years old, and I felt elated because I looked at my grown kids and they were well-adjusted, happy people,” Taya describes. “In my dream I was saying ‘Thank you, God. I did amazing. It was so hard, but they’re good, I’m good and we made it.’ Then God looked at me and said, ‘I had so much more planned for you. There was somebody else that was going to add to you and your children’s life and you were going to add to theirs, but you were so stubborn. You missed it.’” Taya woke up and cried for days.
Concerned with admitting to God that she didn’t want anybody else, Taya says she began to worry she could be messing everyone up, herself included. “I’m doing the best I can,” she confides, “but I worry God has more for me than what I’m accepting.” Distraught, Taya turned to a trusted friend, who assured her that the dream was due to her own fear and that God still has a
“I’m doing the best I can, but I worry God has more for me than what I’m
accepting.”
beautiful plan for her. “I hurt knowing that I alone can’t fully fill that void in our lives,” confesses Taya. “But I don’t feel emotionally prepared to fill it with someone else yet. I have God, my kids, my dog, my work, and for now, it’s enough. I just try to cling to the high points when I feel like we’re rocking it, when we’re laughing and joyful.”
During those inevitable low points, Taya admits to her kids when she’s not feeling strong. “As soon as I say I’m feeling weak, their faces soften and they say, ‘That’s okay, Mom. None of us are perfect and you’re still trying.’ That’s so important to remember. I’m not an adult with all the answers of how to do this, so I try to give myself the freedom to keep figuring it out.”
Wiser through the tears
Today, five and a half years since Chris’s death, Taya admits she’s still a work in progress, but looks back on her lessons and triumphs with hope. “People will say, ‘My gosh, you’re a 180-degree difference than you were a year ago!’ and I think, Really? Because I still feel like an emotional mess,” she says with a chuckle. “My eyes are always on the line ahead of me, so sometimes I forget to look back and see that I’m light-years away from where I was.”
One of the biggest lessons Taya has learned is that holding on to anger prevents healing. “People have asked if I’m angry that God let this happen,” she says. “And I say no because I believe there’s a bigger point to this. I say I’m on Team God on this playing field of life. You suffer together and you win together.” Taya says she also doesn’t carry hatred in her heart for Chris’s killer. “I’ve come to understand that it’s not mine to carry,” she says. “I just give it to God.”
Taya has also learned to adjust her expectations of herself and to keep adapting. “We all have moments when we don’t match up to our own expectations or our plans fail,” Taya says. “But I think God’s plan is like a disco ball— there are too many facets to see it all at once, so we must adapt and trust that the big picture is beautiful.”
Finding purpose in pain
Helping others is Taya’s secret to multiplying the healing love and hope that has sparked in her heart. “When you see someone suffering, just keep showing up for them,” she advises. “I try to remind others that God promises to see us through the pain and to bring beauty from ashes—He’s done that for me in so many ways. It doesn’t change the pain, we still go through it, but it does show you new kinds of beauty.”
As Taya looks ahead at the next five years, she admits the grief is still there, but that’s okay. “God has shown me that the ones we love never really leave us. When you shut out the pain of losing them, you also shut out the joy of loving them,” she says. “You just have to keep drawing that line, praying for the strength to make it that far, then drawing another. Soon you’ll be farther than you ever expected.”