Savannah Guthrie Reflects on the 'Gifts' of Wisdom Her 'Deep and Complicated' Dad Gave Her Before She Lost Him at Age 16

Although Savannah Guthrie’s dad passed when she was just a teen, he still made a long-lasting impact on her life.

"My father died when I was 16. I think about him all the time," the Today show co-anchor, 52, shared. "He was deep and complicated, and he didn't talk to us like little kids. He told us things that I didn't understand at the time but later would remember, long after he died."

"I feel almost like he knew or God knew, he needs to give me this wisdom," she added of the late patriarch. "She can't understand it now, but it's going to preserve it for the ages. It's going to be such an interesting and unusual, and strange thing that he says, that I'll remember it. And years later, it will be like a gift I unwrap. 'Oh, that's what he meant. Oh, now I understand.'"

Guthrie’s dad, Charles, passed away from a heart attack back in the ‘80s, and the media personality has since named her 7-year-old son, Charley, after him. In addition to Charley, the mother-of-two also shares daughter Vale, 9, with her husband, Michael Feldman.

The newswoman noted how her father "spent so much time with us and he took us so seriously" though she and her siblings were young.

"The loss of my father was shocking and devastating. It cracked open our family and crushed us," she explained. "He was our center. We just idealized him and adored him. He was larger than life, and funny, and charming, and adorable. His loss was so sudden and so shocking."

In addition to her recent remarks, Guthrie goes in depth about grappling with the loss of her dad in her book, Mostly What God Does: Reflections on Seeking and Finding His Love Everywhere.

"What I write about in the book is processing that grief and processing the fact of losing my dad at the age of 16, after years and years. And through faith, starting to try to understand it in a larger sense and in larger terms, and in God's terms," she said.

"It's kind of hard to put it into words, because it's not about a sense of peace, it's just a sense of acceptance and trust that God knows what he's doing and that he does have a plan," she continued. "In that moment, that plan can be shocking and devastating and earth-shattering. My father's death was all of those things for me and for my family. But that over time, with the healing of time, but mostly with the grace of God, you can kind of come to terms and come to understand.”

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“And through faith, believe not only that God knows what he's doing, that death is not his plan, but that through faith, we have hope," she concluded.

People interviewed Guthrie about her father's death.