The Incredibly Sad Way Joey Feek Prepared Her Daughter for Life Without Mom
Nearly a month after country singer Joey Martin Feek died from cervical cancer, her family is picking up the pieces and figuring out what “normal” means now. Her husband, Rory, has already enrolled their daughter, Indiana, into a special-needs preschool that Joey loved. And now, he’s revealing the steps Joey took to help little Indy adjust to life without her mother.
In a new post on his blog, This Life I Live, Rory wrote that Joey purposely distanced herself from her daughter in her final days, which had to be a gut-wrenching decision. In November of last year, when she entered hospice care, Joey realized that she had to make Rory the main person in Indiana’s life. And that meant intentionally separating herself from her daughter.
“She started going against everything in her being that told her ‘time was short,’ so hold her baby even tighter… and longer… and more,” Rory wrote, “and instead, she handed the baby to me, and sat alone in a bed and watched and listened as my relationship with Indy grew…and hers lessened.” From that point on, Indiana loved her mother, but turned to her father more.
Rory was floored by Joey’s display of character at her weakest moments. “She let Indy fall more in love with me…and less in love with her,” he wrote. “She carried the pain on her own shoulders, to try to keep it off of mine. And even more so, off of Indy’s.”
Since Joey’s death, Indiana “has not asked for her mama,” not even once, Rory says. He hopes that one day she fully learns about her mother’s love and legacy, and watches videos of Joey in better times. But for now, Rory takes her to visit “mama” at the family cemetery every day, and they take solace in their “conversations” with her there while trying to rebuild their lives as a family.
