Former country star Granger Smith opened up about the “agreement” he made with his wife Amber Bartlett to keep their family together following the tragic death of their 3-year-old son in an accidental drowning in 2019.
The 43-year-old singer and his wife talked about the day their son River was rushed to hospital after an accident in the pool at their Texas home and hearing doctors tell them there was “zero chance” their little boy was going to survive, Today reported.
“We asked for a second opinion,” Smith said. “The second crew came in and said: ‘Yes, we confirm this.’ Sympathetically of course, they told us: ‘There is no chance.'”
Smith said the two then walked out to a little serenity garden after hearing the news. “We sat out there just dumbfounded.”
“Then we just looked at each other and we knew the statistics — we knew that couples don’t make it,” he added. “The odds are against us. The world is completely against us, and people are mean and they will perpetuate this.”
“He’s my husband and I love him so much," Amber Bartlett tells https://t.co/LaKO1WBr7r. "We’re both walking through the exact same grief.” https://t.co/D27gem1pmP
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) August 15, 2023
“So we made an agreement, right then — it was like, almost, a business agreement,” Smith continued. “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.”
Smith said he was the one with River when their child accidentally fell in the pool and credited his wife with keeping the couple together through the grief.
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“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?'” the former country singer said. “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,” he added. “Ever. And if she did once — if she had slipped in her worst, darkest moment — one time — that could have put a slice in me that was irreparable in my soul. That might have been the thing that split us up forever — she didn’t do that.”
Bartlett said it was “the grace of God” that helped her to not blame Smith for their son’s death.
“I just never felt that,” she added. “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?”
“I just didn’t,” Bartlett continued. “I didn’t have an answer as to ‘why?’ He’s my husband and I love him so much. We’re both walking through the exact same grief.”
Smith and Bartlett have had four children together, a daughter named London, an older son Lincoln, River, and a fourth son Maverick, whom they welcomed to the world in August 2021.
