Olympic skier Bode Miller and his wife, Morgan Beck, welcomed a son seven weeks ago, just four months after their 19-month-old daughter Emmy tragically drowned in a neighbor’s pool. It took the couple almost a month to name their third child together, Miller revealed on The Today Show. “We just called him baby brother and everyone thought we were just crazy,” he said. “It took us three weeks, but once you got to know him it was really clear.”
Miller and Beck, who also share a 3-year-old son named Nash, chose Easton Vaughn Rek Miller as their child’s moniker. Miller grew up in Easton, New Hampshire, so, it’s a nice tribute to his roots. He also spoke about how welcoming Easton has helped his family deal with their grief over losing Emmy. “If there’s one thing that can kind of help to heal and fill that spot in your heart it’s a baby — and he’s a special one,” Miller said. “Besides the lack of sleep, it’s been a nice process to be able to go through.”
“We see the path forward a little bit. It’s just kind of keeping going and trying to stay positive, but it’s not easy,” he said of handling the joy of welcoming a new baby into the world while simultaneously mourning the loss of another. “I don’t think it gets that much easier,” he said.
“We see the path forward…It’s not easy. I don’t think it gets that much easier.”
Watch @MillerBode’s full interview with @savannahguthrie about the unimaginable loss of his and @MorganEBeck’s 9-month-old daughter, the addition of a new baby boy to the family and more. pic.twitter.com/ztpXj8AKrY
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) November 27, 2018
Since Emmy’s death, Miller and Beck had made it a priority to warn other parents about the dangers of childhood drowning as it’s the number one killer of children ages 1-4 in America. In a joint interview with The Today Show this past July, Beck said “a child under 30 pounds can drown in 30 seconds. And I just keep counting to 30 in my head. That was all I needed.”
During his interview with Savannah Guthrie on Tuesday (Nov. 27), Miller continued to advocate for pool and water safety for children. The 41-year-old athlete said he “wanted to affect change … My call to action was always for people to address it with their pediatricians. I think that’s the missing link … I’d never heard about it from a pediatrician, and I’d gone to so many wellness visits that it started to be a little bit ridiculous.”
“No one wants to be negligent. I don’t think we were. It’s more about directing some energy to areas where it can affect change,” he continued. “That pediatrician-parent relationship is really a powerful one.”
