Granger Smith Reveals New Mission After Loss of 3-Year-Old Son, River

Granger Smith has a new mission in life, after the tragic loss of his 3-year-old son, River. The toddler drowned in his family’s pool last month, with Smith and his wife, Amber, requesting that donations be made to Dell Medical Center, where River was treated, after his death.

Last week, the couple donated a check for more than $218,000, which was raised from the sale of t-shirts, made in River’s honor, with all the proceeds going to the hospital. Although nothing will ever compensate for the loss of Smith’s son, he does find solace in the good he can do while keeping his son’s memory alive.

“It’s going to be a mission I’m going to be on for the rest of my life,” Smith shared in a video posted on YouTube. “I mentioned I could just disappear and go to Colorado, and never be heard from again. But that doesn’t do anything for my son’s legacy. That doesn’t do anything for River Kelly’s name. And so we are going to do everything we can to spread that love, spread that joy that he brought us, and to raise money for good.

“To raise morale for good, whatever it costs, whatever it takes, however many years it takes,” Smith said while en route to the hospital to deliver the check. “Today is the beginning of that. It’s going to be very bittersweet.”

Smith is also focusing on his other two children, 7-year-old London, and Lincoln, 5, who were all outside when the accident occurred.

“Part of what we’re going through now is the healing of our two children,” said the singer. “They’re doing good, and I’m doing good. And when I say good, you have to understand that there’s a new baseline. We’re different. I’m a different person than what I was a month ago, and I’ll never be that person again. So when I say I’m doing good, it’s the new baseline of doing good.”

The Texan spoke out about the tragic evening, revealing how unlikely it was that River even made it into the pool.

“The night of the accident I was with all three kids,” Smith recalled. “We were all in the backyard. London and I were playing gymnastics, the boys were playing water gun fight. The events that happened – and this is really important to understand for everyone, especially parents – this whole thing took roughly 30 seconds. We have a pool gate. We have a fence that we built. As soon as we moved into this house we built a fence, with a child lock on the gate. We take that very seriously.

“During that sequence of events that, as many times as I’ve gone through this sequence of events in my head, which has been a million, as many times as I’ve gone through these, there’s a series of scenarios that happened that were virtually impossible, and River found a way to accomplish the impossible several times.”

Smith also offered a word of caution for other parents, like himself, who believed their child was in less danger because they could swim.

“The other thing is, he was a swimmer, and we swam every day,” noted Smith. “He was around that pool every single day of that long Texas summer. There’s things to account for, when you talk about a kid who can swim. You have to account for wearing a diaper, which adds another 10 pounds to the body. You have to account for shoes. If you can’t learn to swim with shoes and with a full diaper, that’s a whole different deal.”

To purchase a River Smith tribute t-shirt, visit GrangerSmith.com.

Photo Credit: Instagram / Granger Smith