In June 2019, Granger and his wife announced that their son River, 3, had died in a drowning accident
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/Granger-Smith-amber-smith-050726-92559ec23f954018ba8b1b75d6809ddf.jpg "Granger Smith and Amber Smith visit Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas to present a donation in memory of their son, River Kelly Smith on June 25, 2019 in Austin, Texas.")
Credit: Rick Kern/Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- Granger and Amber Smith made a pact to stay together after their son River’s tragic drowning in 2019
- Granger shared that Amber never blamed him for the accident, which he says could have broken their marriage
- Amber credits their unity and strength during the tragedy to their faith and experiencing the loss together
Granger Smith and his wife Amber made a promise to each other after their son River, 3, died in a drowning accident.
On a Wednesday, May 6 episode of the Jinger and Jeremy Podcast, the country singer opened up about the pact he and his wife made to stay together after the tragic death of their son River.
"I think we recognized early that most couples don't make it," Granger shared on the podcast. "I don't know the statistic, but it's over 50 percent."
"It usually leads to divorce, something like that," he added.
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In June 2019, Granger and Amber shared the “unthinkable” news on Twitter and Instagram, revealing that “despite doctor’s best efforts, he was unable to be revived.” River was laid to rest on June 11.
"We were out in this serenity garden and just, kind of, in the aftermath of organ donation and, you know, friends and family and, like, [realizing] River is not going to come back, and all of this," said Granger. "We just did this really unromantic, 'Hey, let's just shake on this. Let's promise each other we're going to stay together. We're not going to be a statistic in this.'"
Amber remembers that Granger started the conversation, telling her that they just have to "find the good" in the situation.
"'We have to try to find the good, not the reasons. We have to try to find the good in this and we can't let anything tear us apart,'" Amber recalled her husband saying.
Granger said he felt like it was harder for Amber to keep her end of the deal since he was the one in the backyard with River.
"Anytime I talk about that, though, I always say your end was much harder to uphold than my end because I was in the backyard with Riv, you weren't," he shared. "And so you, at any time, could have said in your lowest moment, 'Babe, how could you have done this? Where were you? How did you let this happen?'"
"Never did you do that, not once. Not even in your lowest, weakest moment did you snap at me and say, 'You caused this.' You never did, and that could have completely broken me," continued Granger.
Amber attributed not snapping at her husband due to the "grace of God."
"I didn't ever feel that. By the grace of God, we were both home at the same time — which we weren't ever usually home," she said. "He was gone or I was gone. We experienced that together, and God gave us the gift of going through that together."
"I felt, as we're both performing CPR on our son, we are both fighting for our son here. This is our son, this is our marriage," continued Amber. "I felt guilt that I didn't put River to bed earlier, I should have taken the boys inside. There's all kinds of parenting guilt that we both feel."
"How dare I put any sort of blame on you?" asked Amber. "And so, we made that kind of pact and just said, 'Nothing's going to tear us apart. We're going to choose each other every day.'"