How ‘Surrender[ing] To God’ Helped Granger Smith After Son’s Tragic Death
By Movieguide® Contributor
Country music star Granger Smith is sharing how his faith helped him after the tragic death of his 3 year-old son
River Smith drowned in the family’s pool in July 2019.
“I was there,” Smith recalled. “I was 15 feet away from this. I was doing gymnastics with my daughter, and River was playing water gunfight with our son, Lincoln. And somehow he got into our gated locked pool. Within seconds, right behind me while I was doing gymnastics with our daughter, he was in the pool and had inhaled water. Became unconscious. When I pulled him out, I didn’t know CPR, besides what I had seen in the movies, and we lived out in the country.”
He continued “So, it took paramedics 10 minutes to get there. That’s too long to go without oxygen to his little brain, and it ended up being irreversible.”
River died the next day.
“The months and years following that were rock bottom for me,” Smith said. He shared that he and wife Amber Bartlett struggled to come to terms with their son’s death.
“I thought I could [do it] on my own with self-help and self-improvement and exercise and positivity and visualization, meditation and devotionals,” he explained. “I thought I could just mend it, fix it and move on, and I couldn’t.”
The singer said that it wasn’t until he “surrendered to God” that he found any peace.
“God gave River to us for three years and that was his mission,” Smith explained. “I don’t think God takes anyone too soon. I believe he was put on this earth for the exact amount of time… He lived a good 1,000 days. That’s a huge example for me and how we’re going to look at every single day.”
Smith is now putting his knowledge of overcoming grief to use in an upcoming project.
He is set to make his acting debut in Pure Flix’s MOONRISE, where Smith will play a widowed country singer trying to navigate life without his wife.
“I just thought, ‘Wow, that’s a really good story. I really like the story,'” he shared. “I didn’t think about how difficult it would be to memorize the entire script and to go through that month-long, rigorous journey of filming this feature-length movie, but I really enjoyed it.”
Movieguide® previously reported on how Smith’s faith has helped him navigate the loss of his son:
Country music singer Granger Smith and his wife, Amber, told PEOPLE magazine that their faith has been their strength since their son, River, tragically died just over a year ago in a freak drowning accident.
“I feel like I’ve died,” he said. “It’s not a bad thing that that ‘me’ died. In fact, I think it’s all good. It’s only good.”
Granger’s words echo scripture that tells us we must die to ourselves in order to be alive in Christ. By recognizing this, Granger says he has grown in his relationship with the Lord.
He added, “I feel wiser. I feel more in tune spiritually. I feel more aware of our present moment and the value in the present moment, the value in the current breath that we have.”
Since that tragic day in June 2019, Granger and Amber have done a few things to try to grapple with their grief.
Talking about his faith, Granger said, “For me, that’s pretty much all I’ve had. My brain is not capable of calculating that magnitude of a loss, and then I have to realize that I don’t have to. I can lean on a higher power for that and know that my little boy is in a better place.”
Amber said she has, “Never felt closer to God than I did from the night of the accident on. I’ve never felt that he has left me or forsaken me.”
Last month, Amber shared a post on Instagram marking the one-year mark of their loss. Part of the caption reads, “God is still good. Exactly 1 year later, today, we close on our new land. The timing is not lost on me. God is guiding us and I feel Riv with us every step of the way.”
The couple also created the River Kelly Fund.
The mission statement says, “We hope to shine our light on those that provide support and bring awareness to causes including children in need, arts and education, wildlife preservation, military, veteran and first responder assistance, donor affiliations and many more organizations close to our hearts.”
As they continue to navigate through their guilt, both Granger and Amber hope and pray that one day they’ll be able to forgive themselves for the death of their son.
“I know that there’s going to be a time when I’m going to forgive myself, but I’m not there yet,” Granger said.
Amber added, “I don’t know if we ever truly will be able to forgive ourselves. I pray that we can. I hope we can.”
