Bode Miller Tearfully Recalls His Daughter Emmy’s Death on ‘Special Forces’

Bode Miller is one of the cast members on season 2 of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, sharing their personal experiences with his castmates. When discussing his family with other contestants, Miller, 45, mentions his late daughter Emeline (“Emmy”), as seen in a clip shared with PEOPLE. At 19 months old, Emmy died in a drowning accident.

“It was brutal. She let herself out the back door and jumped right into our neighbor’s pool,” he says in tears. Miller, 45, is asked how he can handle a tragedy like that, to which he replies. “It does not go away.”

The wife of late comedian Bob Saget, Kelly Rizzo, says, “It’s such a weird thing that I never knew until you grieve is that you feel guilty for feeling happy. Even if you have a moment of happiness, you’re like, ‘Oh my god, am I going to get judged for feeling happy? I shouldn’t feel happy.’” Miller agrees, “It’s so conflicting. It’s one of the strangest things.”

Miller is also the father of his daughter Scarlet Olivia, 21 months old, and his twin boys Asher and Aksel, who are both 3½ years old, as well as son Easton, 4, and son Nash, 7, with his wife Morgan Miller as well as son Nate, 10, and daughter Dace, 14, from his previous relationships.

During a heartfelt Instagram tribute in June, Miller marked five years since Emmy’s death. “It’s been five years,” wrote the skier. “On the night of her birth, our midwife @lindseymeehleis noted that Emmy was ‘here to change the world.’”

“5 years after her loss, I can see it. Emmy was fearless, determined and fierce from the moment she was born,” he continued. “We miss you Emmy. 19 months was never going to be long enough to hold you in our arms.”

Wife Morgan also reflected on how she grieves Emmy as her other children grow up. After she shared Scarlet had begun swimming lessons, Morgan wrote, “Watching Scarlet swim today made me realize it’s been months where I have been running from the debilitating pain of losing a child…that gut punch that makes it hard to breathe.”

“I’ve gone dark. I’ve refused to cry. I’ve just wanted to be numb. Those grief waves hit where normally I would embrace the pain and grieve, but instead… I turn my back, choke back my tears and decide to do it another day,” she continued.

“It hurts too much. The profound cellular sadness feels too heavy. And to know that I’ll be grieving the loss of my father makes all the pain and grief as a whole feel unmanageable,” she noted. “But watching her swim today also made me realize that this numbness doesn’t protect me from feeling the pain, it prevents me from feeling the joy…and without joy, what’s the point?”

“So after many dark months, here’s to a scary leap of living fully, openly, and vulnerably and embracing the depths of the fundamental human experience of love and loss,” she concluded.