living small for the things

FIVE MONTHS AFTER LEAVING THE TODAY SHOW, THE FORMER ANCHOR OPENS UP ABOUT WEATHERING HER DAUGHTER HOPE'S DIABETES DIAGNOSIS— AND RELISHING THEIR JOYFUL NEW LIFE

- CHARLOTTE TRIGGS, ALEX ROSS

MOM LIFE "Look at me at the PTA," says Kotb (at home with Haley and Hope on April 30). "I didn't even use to know where pickup was."

Hoda Kotb's last day on the Today show, Jan. 10, was an emotional one. “From the minute I walked into 30 Rock that day to the minute I walked out, it’s like this beautiful parade of people were there. Maria Shriver came out, Simone Biles came out, Andy Cohen, Kathie Lee Gifford, Jimmy Fallon. And you know what I remember about it all? I remember my heart breaking,” she says now, sitting in the living room of her cozy all-white home in suburban Westchester County, N.Y. “When you say goodbye to something you love, even though it’s right, it’s like your heart’s broken and on display.”

PAIN AND JOY After adjusting to diabetes treatment, Hope (right) "wakes up happy and goes to bed happy," says Kotb.

When the cameras stopped rolling at 11 a.m. and the cast and crew and Kotb’s friends from all facets of her life descended onto the stage to send her off with a glass of champagne, her cohost Jenna Bush Hager burst into tears. Kotb’s daughters Haley, 8, and Hope, 6, also joined her on-set—and Haley was concerned. “She goes, ‘I’m worried about Jenna,” Kotb recalls. “Jenna was holding and rocking her, and Haley was sitting there looking like she was protecting Jenna. Some things can be super sad and super beautiful, and that’s what that was.”