In 2019, the unthinkable happened to parents Granger Smith, a former country singer, and wife Amber Bartlett. Their 3-year-old son River drowned in their backyard in Austin, Texas. Granger was out there with him, but turned his back for one second to help their daughter London with a gymnastics move. River took this chance to go to their gated pool to fill up his water gun that he was playing with. He fell in.
He was rushed to Dell Children’s Medical Center for emergency care. Granger and Amber were soon told there was no chance he was going to survive. It was at this horrific moment that the couple vowed to not become another statistic and work through their grief together.
Granger and Amber knew that, historically, couples are more likely to divorce after a child dies. They were determined not to let this happen to them as they sat in the hospital’s serenity garden and made a promise to each other.
"So we made an agreement, right then — it was like, almost, a business agreement," Granger recalled to Today. "It was like: 'OK, we're going to do this. The world is going to come at us; we're going to feel terrible; we have huge obstacles, but we are not going to split. We have to make this agreement for the other two kids — for, at least, the other two."
Granger credits his wife for her unwavering grace in this unthinkable tragedy. "I was the one with River. I was in the backyard with him when he went into the pool," he stated. "She could have at any moment said: 'How dare you do this to our boy? How could you have turned your back on our baby?' Easily, in her deepest and darkest moments of anger or guilt or depression she could have said: 'It was you in the backyard.’ She never did — not once. Ever.”
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Amber credits God's grace for never allowing her to think of blaming her husband. She knew it was a horrible accident that was not anyone’s fault. "I just never felt that," she explained. "This wasn't something that he did or something that I didn't do — we're a couple. How could I ever put blame on him?”
Since River’s death, Granger has left country music to enter the ministry. He also published a memoir about healing and grieving his son. Amber gave birth to another child named Maverick, three years after River’s untimely death. The family continues to mourn, heal, and lean on their faith every day.
