Larry Birkhead On How He Explains Anna Nicole Smith’s Death To Daughter Dannielynn

Dannielynn Birkhead was just 5 months old when her mother, Anna Nicole Smith, passed away.

Despite her lack of memories with her mom, her father, Larry Birkhead, says their daughter still yearns for Anna Nicole’s presence.

“We came home from playing with two boys and she saw that bonding they had with their mom and you know, at first I thought she was kinda being a little bit cranky when we got home,” Larry told Access Hollywood’s Michelle Beadle, who visited the family in Kentucky over the weekend. “All of a sudden we went to bed and she started crying saying, ‘I want my mom! I want my mom!’”

At the young age of 6, Larry said Dannielynn doesn’t quite comprehend the finality of death – and explaining the facts to his daughter is heartbreaking.

“She sees the clouds and she thinks — to her, the clouds are heaven, [so] she’ll say, ‘Dad can I get out and play with Mom?’” he said. “And that’s [when] you’re just kinda like — after you get your tissue and you come back — you’re like, ‘Uh, well, no, that’s not the way that works.”

Larry said he’ll try to shield to Dannielynn from Internet stories detailing her mom’s death, but when the time comes, he hopes Anna Nicole’s tragic ending will help their daughter make healthy decisions.

“Until she is of age to know how to unlock my parental lock on the computer, she won’t see [the news about Anna Nicole], but I know that there is a day that she will Google and she will say, ‘I see this,’ or ‘I see that,’” he told Michelle. “I think my whole thing in this whole tale is [that I will] I use this as a cautionary tale to say, ‘Hey, your mom was a good person, but she made some mistakes. So if you don’t want to make mistakes — not just like your mom would make, but like anybody would make — this is what you have to do.’”

For more with Larry and Dannielynn, tune into Access Hollywood all this week.