Savannah Guthrie opened up about how she’s navigated parenting as the search for her missing mother, Nancy Guthrie, continues.
Savannah filled in for Sheinelle Jones on the Monday, June 8, episode of Today With Jenna & Sheinelle. She kicked off the episode by sharing an emotional conversation with Jenna Bush Hager, in which she discussed how she feels about being back on TV as the investigation goes on.
“I read a book of old sermons, and there’s this famous scripture about, ‘You’ll soar on wings like eagles.’ But there’s a part of it where it says, ‘You’ll walk and not grow faint,’” she shared. “And this sermon that I read talked about that, and how there’s a time in life when just walking and not growing faint is about as good as it can get. And that’s what I feel like I’m doing, I’m trying to walk and not grow faint, and it’s a gift from God that I’m able to do so. But it’s always with me.”
She added, “I cry every morning on the way to work, and I cry every morning on the way home. And I’m grateful to have good friends and to be able to come to such a beautiful and joyous and supportive place.”
Savannah went on to note that she and others going through grief can “hold all of these things together,” and that’s advice she has imparted to her two kids. Savannah shares her daughter, Vale, and son, Charley, with her husband, Michael Feldman.
“I try to tell my kids that, too. We can hold our sadness, and we can hold our joy,” she told Bush Hager. “And if you don’t believe it, just watch me. I’m gonna show you.”
Nancy was reported missing from her home in Tucson, Arizona, in February. As authorities continue to investigate the case, Savannah and her family have offered a reward of up to $1 million in exchange for information about Nancy’s disappearance and whereabouts.
Savannah took two months off from Today amid the investigation and returned to the NBC morning show in April. Shortly before her return, Savannah sat down for an emotional interview with her former co-anchor Hoda Kotb, during which she opened up about how her kids were dealing with the situation.
“It’s so hard with kids because, you know, you want to protect them,” Savannah stated. “Vale would write me all the time, [saying,] ‘Mama, any leads? You hear anything? Any hope?’ And I think that, you know, we try to talk to them and try to give them a little more certainty than we have, to let them grieve.”
Savannah also opened up about how the case was affecting her sister Annie Guthrie‘s family. “There’s just a way in which this is even so much harder on Annie and [her husband] Tommy [Cioni] and [their son] because they’re there, and they were there every day for my mom,” she told Kotb. “They made it possible for her to stay in the house we grew up in, that she loved so much. I think she always stayed in that house because I think she still felt my father there, all our memories. [They] let her have her space, and there’s just a way in which this is just even more excruciating for them and all that they’ve been through.”
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