Craig Morgan Retraces the Gutting Day His 19-Year-Old Son Jerry Died in Excerpt from Upcoming Memoir

Road-tripping from his home in Dickson, Tennessee to a concert in South Dakota last week, Craig Morgan reflected on the success he's had in country music — a "second" career after almost 10 years as a paratrooper in the Army, and one that's spawned lucrative opportunities in reality TV.

"I've been so blessed by it," Morgan, 58, tells PEOPLE in an interview about his upcoming memoir, God, Family, Country.

The book, which will be on sale Sept. 27 and is exclusively excerpted below, takes readers along on his action-packed Army service and undercover work busting child prostitution rings in Southeast Asia.

But it also tells the still-raw and tender story of how, in July 2016, he and his wife Karen, 54, lost their son Jerry — the second oldest of their four children — who drowned while tubing on Kentucky Lake with friends. He was 19.

Morgan lives now with haunting what-ifs. He says he does not know exactly what happened on the lake that day, except that it was "a freak accident" — one he would give anything to undo.

"I would give every bit of stardom back, everything I own, both legs and both arms to have Jerry here," Morgan says. "But that ain't the way it works."

Here, a father remembers the worst day of his life — and how music and his Catholic faith pulled him through:

In 1997, after Craig's active duty in the Army and before his country music stardom, Karen was pregnant with their third child when 9-month-old Jerry came into their lives.

We always wanted a big family. We had fostered one or two children already when I came home one day from working at the mall as a security guard. Karen met me at the door. There was a little boy with her. She told me his name was Jerry. "We're keeping him," Karen announced. "I don't care if we don't have two dimes to rub together. He is our son." She was right. There was something about him, an immediate connection.

The adoption was finalized when Jerry was 2½, and the family's lean years faded into memory after Craig broke into the country music scene with his first hit, "Something to Write Home About," in 2000. An abused child before he ended up in foster care, Jerry struggled with dyslexia but grew up to be a popular student and a gifted athlete.

Fishing became something special for my father and Jerry. It was one place Jerry could really focus. He never took his phone out of his pocket — which is more than unusual for a teenager, especially that one.

We had a place in the area near Kentucky Lake, Tenn. My dad, Uncle Willie and Jerry would go up there and catch bass. One of their best times was a day where their biggest haul was a bunch of sunk bushes near the shore, where all three of them managed to tangle their lines. Before long their little boat was just about swamped from all the laughing.

In July 2016, Jerry was already at Marshall University in West Va., for football camp and a program for incoming freshmen, when he surprised his mom with a visit home.

That Friday morning, there was a knock on the door, and I went to answer it, knowing who it was. Karen's back was turned. "Turn around," I told her.

"Who's here at six in the morning!" She was indignant. Jerry had the fun of his surprise, stepping in and hugging his mom. He let her know how special she was to him, a thing he had a knack for.

That night, Jerry went with me to the Grand Ole Opry, where I was doing a show. The hour it took to get to Nashville was my hour with him; we talked and we joked. At the time there was a bit of a craze over a dance move called the "dab." "You're too old to do that," he told me.

I called him out on that—on stage. He was over in the wings, smiling his big Jerry smile.

Afterward, I had to hop on the bus to do a show Saturday. I hugged him and kissed him, told him I loved him, and left.

Sunday I was back home and at our pool, enjoying the sun with Karen. Jerry was tubing with friends on Kentucky Lake. He and I texted back and forth; I didn't want him to go back to school without spending more time with us.

"We're just about to get out of the water," he told me.

Not too much later, around four o'clock, I got a phone call from a friend of mine in law enforcement who told me there'd been an accident on the lake. Jerry had gone under, and they couldn't find him.

Craig and Karen sped to the lake to join the search but, because of his celebrity, "so many people wanted to help or gawk."

I talked to the sheriff and made a deal: We'd leave, which would make things easier for him. When they actually found Jerry, they would allow me and Karen to be there when he was recovered."You have to promise me," I told him, "I'm his daddy, and it's my responsibility to get him out." The sheriff agreed.

Back home, we sat and waited and prayed. Then finally the call came that we'd dreaded but knew was inevitable.

The sheriff sent an ambulance to part of the lake; the media headed there, but it was actually a decoy. Karen and I went to another cove.

I went down in the water. Jerry's hands were clasped and he had a peaceful look on his face. He gazed upward, as if glancing toward heaven.

Karen kissed him on the head. We placed him in the ambulance and said our goodbyes.

Taking time away from the stage to grieve, Craig found that woodworking was therapeutic. His carvings were the origin of the family's craft store, Gallery at Morgan Farms, opened in 2017, followed by their 2018 reality-TV show Morgan Family Strong. Then, in 2019, he poured all his faith and pain into "The Father, My Son and the Holy Ghost."

Jerry had been gone almost three years in January 2019 when one night Karen and I lay down to go to bed. I kissed her good night and she started crying. I knew exactly why.

After you lose a child, any sense of joy or love you feel comes along with a sense of guilt: I should never be happy. Jerry's gone.

That night, Karen cried out of the suffering. I felt it, too. We went to bed, falling off in our own cocoons of grief.

It must have been 3, 3:30 a.m. when my eyes opened and my legs said, time to go. I poured myself a cup of coffee and walked out to the living room with my guitar. There was a lot of emotion in me, from that moment with Karen the night before, and all our months moving through the pain. And something just happened. That emotion and a tune, words—it was my emotion coming into a song. God talking through me. I recorded the lyrics as they came to me.

I know my boy ain't here but he ain't gone. ...

Minute by minute, day by day,

My God….He gave me hope." *

From God, Family, Country by Craig Morgan with Jim DeFelice. Used with the permission of the publisher, Blackstone Publishing. Copyright © 2022 by Craig Morgan.

For more of PEOPLE's interview with Craig Morgan, including his thoughts on moving on from the music business, pick up the new issue of the magazine on newsstands Friday.