Granger Smith is helping his community discuss grief. The Up Toward the Light author, who left his 24-year country music career last year to pursue a future in ministry, remembered hitting a “rock bottom” moment and going into a dark place shortly after the death of his 3-year-old son River in 2019. Smith is also releasing a children’s book targeted at kids ages 4 to 8 in hopes of helping parents and kids navigate loss and grief.
With the help of his daughter and son, Smith saw the “ray of light” he needed to keep fighting not only for his life but also for his family after their tragic loss. He told Fox News Digital, “I thought of my children, Lincoln and London, the ones that I had. I lost my son River. I had Lincoln and London, and I saw their faces, and during a moment when I just wanted to end my life, I thought about them. And there was such a radiance of joy.” He added, “God’s gift to me was them, and to know that they needed me as a father was a powerful understanding. It sounds kind of obvious when I said it that way, but man, when the walls are closing in, and you’re in the darkness – any ray of light you can take is a godsend.”
The Smith family was outside their home when River slipped through their pool gate and drowned in their pool. River was quickly pulled out of the water but was without oxygen for too long and died at a hospital two days later. Lincoln and London both witnessed the accident. Since the accident, Smith and his wife Amber have become outspoken advocates for children’s water safety and donated $200,000 to the hospital that treated River. In August 2021, they also welcomed another little one into the family when Amber gave birth to a son, Maverick.
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Smith has since put pen to paper for his latest work, Up Toward the Light. The book details his family’s tragic loss and how Smith found peace and healing by turning to his faith. He admitted that in the beginning, grief feels a lot like “survival” and being able to “take the next breath.” Smith said, “A lot of times, the more you love someone, the more you’ll grieve them. So if you’re someone who loves anyone a lot, then you’re going to grieve them a lot if you lose them. So, the alternative to that is suppressing your love and not giving out love, and no one wants to do that. That’s ridiculous.”
For his new children’s book, Granger revisited a “pretty impactful” skill he learned in therapy where he simply talked to a tree, something which was completely unbiased and could only listen. He said, “That’s exactly what I thought of. Like, this is weird, but as I kind of went out there and settled in, it was very therapeutic. And so then I thought, well, what if there was a book that was kind of mimicking that situation in a kid’s view, where maybe the kid lost his grandpa, and he wants to talk to, he wants to talk to this tree about his grandpa? And somehow, the tree has this wisdom that he couldn’t have found talking to anyone else. That’s literally what happened to me. And that was the inspiration behind the book.” Up Toward the Light is set to be released on April 2, 2024.