Hoda Kotb returned to the “Today” show yesterday, and explained that her absence was due to a health crisis involving her 3-year-old daughter Hope.

She didn’t give specifics, but she told co-host Savannah Guthrie, “Hope was in the ICU for a few days, and in the hospital for a little more than a week.  I am so grateful, she’s home.  She’s back home.  I was waiting for that day to come.  And we are watching her closely.”

Later in the show she said, “I can’t believe how amazing people are.  Like, that’s the thing I learned through all this; the nurses who stood by her all the way, the nurses who checked on her constantly, the doctors who came in, the people who took care of us.  And I felt like we were held.”

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