On Monday’s episode of the “Today” show, with less than a week to go before Father’s Day, Hoda Kotb opened up about her “larger-than-life” dad and about how he taught her that she “could be anything and do anything.” She also discussed how hard it was for her to lose him when she was only in college.

Daily Mail reported that Kotb’s parents, Abdel Kader and Sameha Kotb, were immigrants from Egypt. Abdel was only 51 years-old when he died suddenly of a heart attack, and Kotb was a junior in college at the time.

“It was like one of those calls in the night that you go, ‘Oh my Gosh,'” Kotb said on Monday of the moment that she was told her father had died.

“He just led by example. He was someone who was such a hard worker,” she added of her dad, who was a fossil energy specialist. “They came here from Egypt, you know, and they really made their life.”

Abdel went on to become president of his own company, but Kotb said that when she was a little girl, she thought he was Vice President of the United States.

“I used to have dreams that my dad couldn’t be the real president, but he could be the vice president — because he wasn’t born here,” Kotb said. “I remember waking up believing my dad was vice president. ”

“It’s weird talking to you about this,” she added to her cohost Jenna Bush Hager, whose father George W. Bush was previously the president.

“But I used to think that because he was such a larger-than-life figure in our lives,” continued Kotb, who also has a brother and a sister. “He just taught us about hard work, getting it done, and we just all believed we could be anything and do anything. They taught us that, my mom and dad.”

Though it’s been over thirty years since Abdel died, Kotb said she still has dreams about him.

“I wonder what he would think about this life you’ve created,” Hager said.

Kotb and her fiance Joel Schiffman are now the parents of two adopted daughters: Haley Joy, three, and Hope Catherine, one. She previously opened up about how her father’s memory inspired her to become a mother later in life.

“I think any older mom who says they haven’t done the math is probably lying,” she said. “I’ve absolutely thought about it and what it means. What it means for the future,’ she said. ‘But my dad passed away when he was in his early 50s and I was in my early 20s…”

“I was a junior in college,” Kotb added. “It was sudden, and scary, and terrible. But the seeds he lay for me during those 20 years, remain with me today. The things he taught me are still a part of me now.”

This piece originally appeared in UpliftingToday.com and is used by permission.

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