Al Roker Felt He “Ruined” Thanksgiving For His Family After He “Almost Died” Following A “Severe Medical Issue”

As Thanksgiving nears, Al Roker is opening up about nearly dying around this time last year.Last fall, the TODAY co-host was absent from the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for the first time in 27 years following being hospitalized with blood clots.

Speaking with journalist Michele Norris — who even deemed Roker’s name as being “synonymous with the Thanksgiving holiday for American families” — on her Your Mama’s Kitchen podcast, he highlighted that it was “no secret that [he] had a severe medical issue,” per a clip published by People.

“And to be completely honest, I almost died,” he shared. “I didn’t know it at the time.”

Explaining that he “missed Thanksgiving, and almost missed Christmas,” he noted that he “forgot how important those touchstone moments are.”

The level of importance that the holidays hold for Roker came through in a story he shared, in which right after coming out of surgery, he told his wife and ABC News correspondent Deborah Roberts about a particular recipe he found in the New York Times cooking section that he intended to make for Christmas, prompting her to believe “he’s gonna make it.”

“I felt, in a sense, badly because I ruined Thanksgiving for the family and I was not going to let that happen for Christmas,” he clarified.

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While Norris urged him to cut himself some slack, he replied, “I know…but it was important to me and gave me something to push for. And I made Christmas dinner.”

Roker returned to TODAY in January, revealing that he “lost half [his] blood.”

“Look, I had two complicating things: I had blood clots, that they think came up after I had COVID in September,” he said. “And then I had this internal bleeding going on. I lost half my blood. They were trying to figure out where it was.”

He then underwent knee surgery in May, causing him to miss three more weeks of his trademark hosting gig on TODAY.

Roker has sustained his sense of gratitude with respect to his health, expressing that he was “glad to be alive” while celebrating his 69th birthday in August.

“This is my 69th anniversary of orbiting the sun, and after everything that I went through at the end of last year, I am more than grateful to be celebrating this birthday,” he gushed. “And to all of you who sent good wishes and well wishes over this past year, God bless ya.”