Granger Smith Explains Why His Family Moved After His Son’s Tragic Drowning Death

Granger Smith is a country musician who documents the lives of his family on their YouTube channel. This past summer, the Smiths endured an unthinkable tragedy when their 3-year-old son River died in a drowning accident in the family pool. Since that day, Granger and his wife, Amber, have been doing whatever they can to honor River’s memory and live with the zest for life that their young son had. Part of the journey of healing for them was moving out of the family home where the accident occurred, according to Taste of Country.

In a heartbreaking video after River’s death, Amber and Granger talked a little about what the day River had died was like. It had started out like the perfect day. The whole family was running around doing cartwheels in the backyard and enjoying the beginning of summer. It was mere seconds that the parents had taken their eyes off River.

During that short amount of time, he’d wound up in the family pool without his life jacket on. While paramedics did what they could to revive the little boy, he died days later in the hospital. His parents made the difficult decision to donate River’s organs so that other people might have a second chance at life.

In a recent video, Granger explained why he and his family came to the decision to leave their old family home. Despite the fact that there were many good memories in that location that the family spent together, the memory of the painful day River died was impossible to escape from.

“There was [sic] thousands of good memories, and one really bad one. My number one priority is the well-being of the other two kids. And I don’t think I was totally myself at the old house. Amber probably wasn’t, either,” Granger said of their decision.

The family prayed together about the decision and eventually decided it was the right choice to make.

“I felt very compelled to make this move,” Granger said.

.@GrangerSmith and his family are saying goodbye to their house. https://t.co/BgyLPTXxS2

— iHeartCountry (@iHeartCountry) August 16, 2019

The couple has two other children, London and Lincoln. London started second grade this week and Lincoln started kindergarten. Amber discussed this bittersweet moment in a touching Instagram post, according to Yahoo News.

“Back to school. Man. The full gamut of emotions today. So happy and proud for London entering 2nd grade. So excited for Lincoln to be able to walk into Kindergarten at the same school as his big sister. Yet, I’m also so sad they won’t have their little brother bouncing and running down the halls, making everyone laugh at drop off.”