Amber Smith is opening up about losing her 3-year-old son, and how donating his organs allowed others to live.
Two people's lives were saved through transplants using organs donated by country singer Granger Smith's late 3-year-old son, River.
In June, Granger and his wife, Amber Smith, suffered an unimaginable loss when their youngest child died in a drowning accident at their home in Texas. Granger said after the tragedy that the family would be donating River's organs. Amber recently received word that the transplants had been successful.
"We got the letter that our tiny, red-headed hero gave life to 2 adults. A 49 year old woman and a 53 year old man," she wrote in a heartbreaking post on Instagram on Saturday. "I cried when we opened it. Cried out of sadness & cried out of love. I’m so proud to be River’s mama and I’m so grateful to God that he gave him to us for those incredible 3 years."
Amber, who shares two other children with Granger -- Lincoln, 5, and London, 7 -- also opened up about the painful decision to donate River's organs after having to take him off life support "when 3 different neuro specialists told us that River had 0% chance of brain recovery."
"I've always known I wanted to be a donor if anything were to ever happen to me. I just felt that if I had viable organs, why would I go into the ground with them? My spirit would be in Heaven, so why not save a life if I could?" Amber explained in the post. "Never in a million years did I think I would be making that decision for my baby."
"I thought, how can we bury our sweet baby and not try to help others? His body is perfect, his organs are perfect, we had to do something," she wrote, explaining how the process for finding recipients for her sons organs was difficult and lengthy, and required them to run tests on River before removing his life support. Amber wrote that she stayed by his side throughout the night.
"I spent the night laying in bed with him, crying and talking to him while they kept running tests and taking blood. The next morning family and staff lined the hall for the 'walk of honor.' We told them River liked to go fast, so to honor him, they pushed him down that hall faster than they had ever pushed anyone. Granger and I held each other and cried."
Amber concluded her post with a heartfelt call for organ donations, sharing, "I pray these 2 recipients live healthy, joy filled, full throttle lives just like Riv. It was one of the hardest, yet easiest, decisions we’ve ever made. There are over 113,000 people waiting for transplants & 20 people die each day waiting. Go to OrganDonor.gov to see how you can help give life as well."
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