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Granger Smith shares details of son's drowning, commitment to finding 'meaning' in the tragedy

The country singer and his wife spoke in a YouTube video that included a montage of their son, River, that showed him giggling while riding in circles on a green toy tractor.
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Country singer Granger Smith shared details about his 3-year-old son's drowning earlier this month, saying that he is committed to "search for every bit of good" that could come from the tragedy.

Smith and his wife, Amber, appeared in a video on the family's YouTube channel Wednesday, about two weeks after River's death.

"It’s important to not stay dark forever and to come back on social media," Smith said after his wife thanked the public for an "outpouring of love."

He shared that the night River drowned, the child was having a water-gun fight with his older brother, while Smith watched his daughter do gymnastics, and "I thought, 'Soak up this moment because it’s not going to last forever.'"

"Somewhere between 30 seconds and 3 minutes later, Amber and I are inside our pool gate doing CPR on our son."

River died at the Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas two days later, Amber wrote on Instagram on Wednesday.

The couple has now raised more than $100,000 for the Austin hospital by selling T-shirts in River's honor.

"We are going to search for every bit of good that we can find in this situation — the worst situation we’ve ever been through — hopefully ever," Smith said. "And we’re going to constantly search for ways that good will come out of this."

"We are going to constantly search for the meaning behind all of this, not the reasons, I think the reason is very different from the meaning. I’m not going to get caught up in the reasons — I’ll never know," Smith said.

"I don’t believe that God takes anyone too soon. I’m not going to play around in my mind that there’s this fictitious timeline of River graduating from college, or high school or playing football because I believe that he was put on this earth for that exact amount of time," Smith said.

River's organs were donated, and Amber wrote on Instagram that at least two other children received transplants from him.

Smith said the couple has spoken to other parents and other celebrities who have lost children, which "seems to really help," and they hope to be able to provide that same comfort to others in the future.

"Because it has been, it’s only been two weeks, but it’s been a journey and we’re still learning every day," Smith said, adding that his family was "stronger than ever."

"Don’t feel sorry for us because we feel very blessed we had an incredible little boy for three years, and we feel good about that and we feel really good about our other kids and their state of mind right now," Smith said.

"We're going to live our best lives," he said, adding that he would be on tour next week, accompanied by his family, but not participating in meet-and-greets.

The video concluded with a photo and video montage of River that opened with a recording of him giggling while riding in circles on a green toy tractor and closed with him pointing to a picture of his late grandfather, noting “heaven.”