Savannah Guthrie on Her ‘Deep and Complicated’ Dad She Lost at 16: ‘I Think About Him All the Time’ (Exclusive)

Savannah Guthrie still has the fondest memories of her late Charles Guthrie after all these years.

“My father died when I was 16. I think about him all the time,” he said Today The 52-year-old co-host of the show talks exclusively to PEOPLE. “He was deep and complicated, and he didn’t talk to us like little children. He told us things I didn’t understand at the time, but I would remember them later, long after he died.”

“I feel almost like he knew or like God knew, he needs to give me that wisdom,” she continues. “She can’t understand it now, but she will treasure it forever. It will be such an interesting and unusual, and strange thing that he says, that I will remember it. And years later, it will be like a gift that I unwrap.’ Oh, that’s what he meant. Oh, now I understand.'”

Savannah Guthrie remembers late father Charles in her 50th birthday post: ‘He never turned 50’

Guthrie’s father died of a sudden heart attack when she was a teenager. To honor him, she named her now 7-year-old son Charley after him.

The broadcaster says her father “spent so much time with us and took us so seriously,” which made his death that much harder to deal with.

(L-R) Charles and Savannah Guthrie.

Courtesy of NBC

“Losing my father was shocking and devastating. It tore our family apart and devastated us,” she explains. “He was our center. We just idealized and adored him. He was larger than life, funny, charming and wonderful. His loss was so sudden and so shocking.”

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Guthrie’s grieving process is detailed in her new faith-based book, Mostly What God Does: Reflections on Seeking and Finding His Love Everywhere. In the book, she talks about the trials and tribulations she experienced over the years — and notes how her faith in God helped her through it all.

Pictured is Savannah Guthrie’s book, ‘Mostly What God Does’.

Thomas Nelson

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“What I write about in the book is processing that grief and processing the fact of losing my father at the age of 16, after years and years. And through faith, trying to understand it in a broader sense and in a broader framework, and in God’s terms,” ​​she shares.

“It’s hard to put it into words, because it’s not about a feeling of peace, but just a feeling of acceptance and trust that God knows what he’s doing and has a plan,” he adds. “At that moment, that plan can be shocking and devastating and shocking. My father’s death was all that for me and my family. But with time, with the healing of time, but mostly with God’s grace, you can somehow reconcile and understand . And through faith, believe not only that God knows what he is doing, that death is not his plan, but that through faith we have hope.”

Book by Savannah Guthrie, Mostly what God does, it is available wherever books are sold.

For more on Savannah Guthrie, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE magazine, on newsstands everywhere Friday, or subscribe here.

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Source: HIS Education