Natasha Gregson Wagner, the daughter of late Hollywood star Natalie Wood, revealed what her stepfather, Robert Wagner, once told her after her mother’s tragic death.
For the unaware, Natalie passed away by drowning in the Pacific Ocean at Santa Catalina Island at the age of 43 on November 29, 1981.
At the time of Natalie’s death, Natasha was 11 years old and when she looks back at those horrifying days, she thinks that “if I don't deal with this, it will kill me, so I'm going to deal with it."
The 54-year-old actress told her biological dad, Richard Gregson, whom she calls “Daddy Gregson” and her stepdad, Robert, whom she calls “Daddy Wagner”, about her desire to leave a note in her mother’s casket.
While conversing with PEOPLE magazine, Natasha said, “I thought, 'The first thing I need to do is I need to go see her.’ And that's what I told my dads. ‘I need to go see my mom.' And they called in a psychiatrist."
"Then my Daddy Gregson took me, and I wrote her a letter and I put it under her hand. That was the first step I took on my walk of acceptance. And from there, I've just gone into the heart of it,” the Urban Legend star quipped.
She found it extremely difficult to find strength for a long time because “everything that happened was so public, but grief is so private. The truth is I do feel better when I talk about my grief.”
However, Robert, who raised her and her sisters Katie Wagner and Courtney Wagner, said he is “proud” of her.
“He always told me that. He told me this once when we were having some therapy together. He said, ‘I never thought you would make it when your mom died,’ because I was so close to her. And so he's always blown away that I am totally okay,” Natasha recalled.