Kathie Lee Gifford is thankful to Hoda Kotb for getting her through one of the darkest times in her life more than a decade ago: losing her husband, Frank Gifford. "Hoda, it was on your birthday," Kathie Lee, 72, recalled to Kotb, 61, while speaking about Frank's death on the Wednesday, January 21, episode of the "Making Space" podcast. "I wanted you to know before you got off a plane from New Orleans and saw it on social media or something." Kathie Lee remembered, "I said, 'I don't even want to tell her because she's gonna come here.' She's gonna say, 'I've got to go be with her. I've gotta go hug her. I won't stay long.' I could just hear your process. You pulled a Hoda that day too." (Frank died on August 9, 2015, at age 84, one week shy of his 85th birthday. The former NFL player and Kathie Lee had been married for 29 years and share two children: son Cody, 35, and daughter Cassidy, 32.) Kotb, for her part, remembers the day of Frank's death and her former Today cohost's subsequent strength "so vividly." Hoda Kotb Officially Exits 'Today': Biggest Moments From Her Final Episode "Well, I remember because I was on the plane, and I was like, 'Oh, Kath's calling,' and I was just landing or just about to, and you said, 'Frank went to the Lord,'" Kotb shared. "I literally was so shocked because I'd just seen you guys together. I remember you said, 'And don't come here. I'm good. I'm fine. It's your birthday.'" Kotb said that despite Kathie Lee's insistence to continue with her birthday plans that day, she instead decided to go comfort her friend in her time of grief. "I remember walking into your backyard and I saw the back of you," Kotb said. "I just was standing there ... You turned around, and you go, 'I'm glad you came.'" With tears welling in her eyes, Kathie Lee explained, "There's certain things that are just seared into your soul, you know, and that was one of them. You never forget that day." Theo Wargo/Getty Images Kathie Lee described finding Frank dead downstairs in their home holding a cup of coffee and eating a piece of cornbread. "To this day I cannot look at a piece of cornbread ... the coffee cup had dropped but not broken," she reflected. Based on Frank's facial expression at his time of death, Kathie Lee gathered that Frank "saw Jesus and Jesus took his breath away." Frank died of natural causes, however, his family revealed he suffered from CTE, a progressive brain disease caused by repeated head trauma. Symptoms can include mood changes, mobility issues and memory loss, per the NHS. "While Frank passed away from natural causes this past August at the age of 84, our suspicions that he was suffering from the debilitating effects of head trauma were confirmed," the Gifford family said in a November 2015 statement. "During the last years of his life, Frank dedicated himself to understanding the recent revelations concerning the connection between repetitive head trauma and its associated cognitive and behavioral symptoms - which he experienced firsthand." Hoda Kotb Gives a New Update on Former 'Today' Cohost Kathie Lee Gifford Kathie Lee shared more about her late husband's brain condition during Wednesday's podcast. "I was grieving for the 10 years before Frank died because he had a lot of CTE in his brain. We knew that," she said. "So he started to die long before he did die." Even though Frank is no longer with her earthside, Kathie Lee found a sense of peace after his death by leaning on her faith. "Scriptures calls it the peace that passes all understanding," she said. "I was crying tears of joy because I knew where he was, and who he was with, even more importantly. And that comes from a place deep in your soul."