Granger Smith and Wife Amber Reflect on 'Trying to Cope' with Guilt After Death of 3-Year-Old Son River

The country singer and his wife lost their son River, 3, in a tragic drowning accident in 2019

Granger Smith is reflecting on a difficult moment in his life.

While appearing on Tuesday's episode of Tamron Hall, the country singer, 44, and his wife Amber Smith opened up about the tragic drowning accident that took the life of their 3-year-old son River Kelly in 2019 and reflected on their silver lining, the birth of son Maverick Beckham in 2021.

"Well, I was processing it badly," Granger says of handling the guilt he dealt with in the wake of his son's death. "I was doing a terrible job because it was crushing me...I felt guilty about failing at the one thing — you know, it's almost a joke that people say, 'Here's the one thing you got to do is just keep them alive 'til they're 18 and get them out of the house.'"

"It's a joke and I failed at that one thing. I failed at keeping my son alive when all I had to do was be there for him. And I was in the yard. I was responsible."

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Related: Granger Smith, Whose Son Died by Drowning, Reaches Out to Shaquil Barrett After Daughter's Death

"I was the responsible adult. Amber was in the house. I had all three kids with me and I failed at that. And that is something that was very hard. It just about killed me, trying to cope with that guilt," the singer shares.

"[I was feeling] the same feeling, that it's our job to keep him safe," Amber adds. "And there was a moment that Granger had asked me to bring the boys inside and I had a long day and I needed to take a shower and I said, 'I just need a break.' So I went in to take a shower."

"So I felt that guilt that maybe if I would have just brought the boys inside, this wouldn't have happened. But then I was also grieving for the heavy guilt that [Granger] was feeling, blaming himself, when it can happen to anybody."

The county musician continued, opening up about the "slideshow" of grief that almost led him to suicide. "It happens in extreme tragedy or PTSD, grief, when something happens in your mind that you cannot comprehend," he says. "So your brain — and this is my explanation from all that I've thought about it — your brain puts together these images back to back to try to calculate 'How do we finish this loop?' There's got to be an end to this loop somewhere,' and so it just runs through your mind."

"And for me, it was like, River facedown in the pool, the EMTs arrive, we're at the hospital, doctors come in and say there's no chance of him coming back from this, 0% chance of survival, we're telling the kids, my son Lincoln's hands on the casket. It's just repeating like a slideshow."

"And my brain is going, 'We have to figure out how to fix this!' And there is no fix and so it just continues...there would be a moment just like this [while I'm onstage performing] when the slideshow would start," Granger says.

"There's River facedown in the pool… [this would happen] in the middle of a conversation with somebody, the middle of the night, wakes me up in the middle of the night," he shares. "At any time it could come into my head…"

"We were about six months after we lost Riv. The endless slideshow. I had done some things, therapy had taught me some things. I had figured out a few ways to kind of diffuse it a little bit and I was feeling okay, I was feeling better. And one night, specifically in Boise that night, it felt normal."

"We had a pretty good show," the singer continues. "I didn't think about the slideshow, almost the whole show on stage. I got off and the band said ‘Wanna go have a couple of drinks?’ And I said ‘Absolutely. That sounds amazing. I feel normal again. Be with my boys again.’"

"Took a few shots, felt a little tipsy, walked back to the bus and I thought, ‘This is the first time I felt tipsy since... Oh no.’ The slideshow came back and then I thought ‘Oh no, in this inebriated state, I won't be able to slow down the slideshow,' " he reveals.

"'I won't be able to control it with these mechanisms that therapy taught me,’ and so I thought that ‘There's no way. There's no hope. There is no way.’ And so I reached for the one place that I knew could stop it. And that was with that gun.”

After a long pause, Hall jumps in to say, "You're here. You didn't do it," to which Granger replies, "No."

Despite going through a living nightmare, Granger and his wife found a silver lining in their son Maverick, who was born in 2021. "He is amazing," Amber says of her youngest. "He's never a replacement for River but he's a beautiful new chapter in God's story."

Asked how much Maverick knows about River since he's only 2, Granger says, "He knows River. He knows his picture. He kisses his picture. He knows that that's his 'Bubba.'"

"He watches videos. He actually prefers and likes to watch home videos of River. I don't understand what's going on in his mind or what he thinks or why he sees River with Mommy and Daddy and now he's not here and Maverick is but I don't think it really matters at this point."

"He's just very familiar with his brother...there are so many things that they have in common that they love," Granger says. "They never met and yet they love so many of the same things. They act so similar except River had red hair and Maverick has blonde hair, but they are so similar."

"There's no two humans closer than any other in the world than River and Maverick and they've never met."

Along with River and Maverick, Granger and Amber are also parents to son Lincoln Monarch, 9, and daughter London, 11.

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