![]() ![]() Big tears exploded down my cheeks and puddled onto the bus floor. My 3-year-old son, River, is facedown in the pool. The concert might’ve felt normal, but what happened in that back room reminded me that my life still wasn’t: The slideshow burst into my mind again, vivid and crystal clear. Late in the evening, I pushed back from the bar, said my farewells, and stumbled drunkenly to my room in the back of the tour bus. So when some of the guys affiliated with our show found a small bar directly across the street from our buses and invited the rest of us to join them for a nightcap, I didn’t hesitate. After nearly seven months of struggle, heartache, and anxiety-and the exhaustion of hiding it-I wanted to celebrate making it through. We were scheduled for two days of back-to-back shows. 19, we arrived in Boise, Idaho, where we parked the buses for three days. Night after night I chiseled through the concerts and flew home for the occasional days off. The first week of December 2019, I bused off with my country music band for a rigorous 22-day sold-out tour on the West Coast. By the final song each night, I could barely hold back the heavy tears ready to erupt from my eyes. I’ve been a professional performer for most of my life, but that was some of the best pretending I’ve ever done. The moment you have to say goodbye to your child.Īfter we lost Riv, I stayed home for three weeks before the next decision became imminent. Absolutely nothing can prepare you for that moment. In the hospital, when the doctors told us that River wasn’t going to survive, shock overwhelmed us. We stayed with him in his room, sitting, crying, and praying to God for a miracle. In the NICU, River was surrounded by a team of doctors who were doing everything they could to save him. I rushed to the pool, flung the gate open, crashed into the water, and picked him up. London shrieked, and I took off running as the whole world began to spin around me. How many minutes since I’d last seen him? One? Maybe two? Fear gripped me. Just 15 paces away, inside our gated and locked pool, I saw River in the water, facedown. I glanced over my left shoulder, and my heart stopped. I didn’t realize just how true those words were until another thought interrupted them immediately: The boys are quiet. I thought, Soak in this moment because it won’t last forever. Yet as I stood in the yard with my kids, I realized all I ever really wanted was to be present in this moment-at home with my incredible family. Even more so because my bags were already packed to go back on tour the next day. ![]() It was about as wonderful an evening as any dad could ask for, and I wanted to soak up every second. Lincoln was 5 years old, and River was a 3-year-old extrovert who was always on the move. Meanwhile our boys, Lincoln and River, were in another part of the yard having a water gun fight. One Texas evening in June, I was barefoot in the backyard, enjoying a beautiful, relaxing evening, spotting my daughter, London, as she did a handstand. ![]() I was topping charts, winning awards, touring with my friends and family-life was good. Being a successful country music singer was everything I’d dreamed of since my dad took me to see George Strait at the Alamodome in San Antonio when I was 16. What He was trying to show me was that even amid crushing tragedy, I had not yet fully surrendered to Him. I glared through the windshield up into the blue sky and shouted, “What!? What are You trying to show me, God?” Clutching the steering wheel and making a right turn onto I-35, I saw the word for a fifth time. On one particular day that summer, I was driving around my hometown and within the span of just a few minutes I saw river four different times. It’s called the Baader-Meinhof effect-when something seems to be happening more, even when it’s not. It wasn’t that the word actually appeared more often, but that I was encountering it more often. That might not seem surprising since the word is on maps and street signs and shopping centers all over the world. It was the summer of 2020 when I started noticing the word river everywhere. ![]()
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