Mitch Rossell was just 10 years old when he woke up in the middle of the night, walked downstairs to the anguished sounds of his mother crying and received the shocking news that his father was dead.
"I just started screaming," Rossell, 35, remembers during a recent interview with PEOPLE. "I just lost it. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that there's not a 10-year-old on the planet that's ever lived or will live that had a better relationship with their dad than I had."
Roy Rossell was killed at the hands of a drunk driver on a Tellico Plains, Tennessee road in the early evening hours of Jan. 21, 1998. He was 31 years old at the time of his death.
"It just ripped my heart out," Rossell says quietly. "It was brutal."
And while the pain still seems as fresh as it did on that fateful night, Rossell now finds comfort in talking about the father he adored.
"He was the greatest," Rossell says quietly about his late father, who was 21 when the country music singer/songwriter was born. "He was just so patient and so kind, and he always treated me with so much respect. He's literally the model for who I strive to be as a dad. He was incredible."
So, in 2016, Rossell decided the time was right to tell a bit of his father's story.
"My first son was 6 months old at the time," Rossell remembers of the day he sat down alongside fellow songwriter Dave Turnbull to write the touching ballad "Son." "Dave actually had the idea, and it was finally like that gave me permission to even think about those things and access them, you know? I just don't think I was capable of it before that. It was too painful. Once we wrote it, I knew it was unique and I knew the impact it was having on every single person I played it for."
But still, Rossell says he wasn't sure he was ready to let the song out into the world, until now.
"It's so cool and crazy how God works and how music works and the healing that has happened for me through this song that I didn't even know I needed," says Rossell of "Son," premiering exclusively on PEOPLE.
Granted, the tearjerker of a song just might turn into a career-altering song for Rossell, who has been working his way up the country music ladder with the help and unwavering support of none other than Garth Brooks.
"Garth heard ['Son'] pretty early on and he just absolutely loved it," says Rossell, who served as the sole songwriter for Brooks' No. 1 single, "Ask Me How I Know." "[Brooks' wife] Trisha [Yearwood] said the same thing. They just have always thought that it's a really powerful song. In fact, for a long time, they wanted me to get it out as soon as possible. I probably didn't get it out as soon as they thought I should, but I don't know. I wanted it to feel right in my gut."
And while Rossell says he is now confident that he is making the right decision by releasing "Son," now, he still wonders if he will ever be able to perform the song without a tinge of leftover pain.
"It's terrifying in some ways to think about performing it on a regular basis," says Rossell, who received a standing ovation after his performance of "Son" at his Grand Ole Opry debut back in December. "But I feel I have an obligation to help people with this song. This is the gift I was given, and if I'm not using it to try to make the people around me better, then I don't think I'm using it right."
