Country singer Granger Smith and his wife, Amber, endured the unimaginable just a few months ago when they lost their 3-year-old son River to a drowning accident. Everyone processes loss differently, so while Amber often speaks of her grief on social media, Granger has been much quieter on his accounts in the last few months.

Until now.

The father recently broke his social media silence to post an update on himself and his family and the grief they’ve been moving through since June.

“I haven’t said much on socials lately. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say, it’s more that most things just don’t seem important enough to share,” Granger writes in his most recent Instagram post.

data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-version="4" style=" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:658px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);">

He continues: “We all know that social media has become a mask…a highlight reel per say, that we can hide behind and appear to promote our best moments of our best days. Eh…that stuff doesn’t matter.”

While Granger hasn’t been active on most platforms, he has continued to share via his family’s YouTube channel, The Smiths. According to the singer, that platform allows him to feel like he’s speaking to a group of friends and he’s thankful for the support.

While Granger doesn’t directly mention his late son, River, in his latest Instagram post he does praise his wife for the way she’s opened up about the family’s unthinkable loss. “Amber has continued to post on her socials and I’m blown away by her ability to be so real, raw and engaging in her captions and pictures. Once upon a time I had the way with words in our relationship, but now I’m letting her speak for us both,” he writes.

The tough thing about loss? Even though it changes your whole world, at the end of the day, life has to go on and Granger shared that he still has bills to pay and is preparing to get back to work, performing and promoting his apparel brand. Life goes on, even after unimaginable loss.

“Life is a storm,” Granger writes. “Realizing that makes it easier to be grateful for the rays of sunshine.”

You might also like: