Joey Feek Gone Nine Years: “I Pray That One Morning I Just Don’t Wake Up”

Joey Martin Feek was my friend. As of today, she’s been gone nine years.

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Being a new mom sick with recurring cervical cancer arguably made her more famous than her music. Her then husband, Rory Feek, blogged about every up and down of the fatal disease. As the disease progressed, so did public interest. And recently, with all of the Feek family drama, they’re back in headlines again. If as many people cared about Joey when she was healthy as they did after she got sick and ultimately died, her life would have been much different. I don’t know that she would have said it was better with the added attention, but it would have been different.

I met Joey in 2008 when she and her husband, songwriter Rory Feek, formed the duo Joey + Rory and competed on CMT’s competitive talent show Can You Duet? Rory always wore overalls. With her lithe frame, raven hair, and traditional voice, Joey sliced through the competition like a modern-day Loretta Lynn. Joey drew people to her with her kind eyes and wide smile. She and Rory finished third on the series.

Cervical cancer killed her eight years later, on March 4, 2016.

When we met, I was a reporter (and still am), and my newspaper had very strict rules about befriending people we wrote about. I didn’t mean to befriend Joey—it just happened, and I can’t even pinpoint when.

I Didn’t Intend To Befriend Joey Feek

It might have been the many times I interviewed her about the show or new music. But I think we first bonded over our joint love of farms and animals. Then, when I had my daughter Kansas a year later, that was that. Joey loved that I named my daughter Kansas because if she ever had a daughter, she said she wanted to name her Indiana. At the time, she didn’t know if she would have kids. She did.

As the months and years passed, Joey and Rory lived on their farm south of Nashville. She raised chickens, grew their vegetables, and lived as close to the land as possible. When the duo’s career didn’t immediately explode, Joey opened a precious little restaurant near their farm with Rory’s sister, Marcy Jo. They called it Marcy Jo’s Mealhouse, and it was scrumptious. Any time of the day that I showed up—which wasn’t that often because it was an hour’s drive from my house— Joey was there wearing an apron and serving tables. I remember the cinnamon rolls were delicious and that every time I tried something new, it was even better than the last thing they served me.

I remember one time I drove down there, and Joey was excited because she had discovered that a mama cat had kittens in a nearby shed. She texted me pictures for days.

My Daughter Chased Joey’s Chickens

By the time Kansas was 1 year old, my daughter loved chickens—really loved chickens. She had never met a real chicken, but that didn’t seem to matter to her. However, it did matter to Joey. I bought Kansas a blue sundress with horses embroidered on it and a pair of cowboy boots. I drove her down to Joey and Rory’s farm. As I was unbuckling her from the car seat, Joey squatted down and opened her arms. Kansas ran into them as soon as her feet touched the ground, and Joey lifted her into the air. They had never met.

Joey carried Kansas to the cleanest chicken coop you can imagine and turned her loose inside. Kansas was thrilled—the chickens less so. She chased them in circles as long as my frazzled nerves could stand it. I was so afraid she would give Joey’s chickens a heart attack. I don’t even know if that’s something that actually happens. Kansas had the time of her life. We spread a blanket on the ground in Joey’s yard, and Kansas went to sleep. Joey and Rory were hosting an event at their house that day, and they sang for fans as Kansas slept in the background.

It wasn’t long after that that Joey got pregnant with Indiana. I knew she was going to be the very best mama. She was great with Kansas, and she had raised Rory’s daughters, Heidi and Hopie, as her own kids for years.

Joey Wanted a Home Birth, Didn’t See Doctor During Pregnancy

Being the pioneering woman she was, Joey wanted a home birth. Indiana Boon was born breech at home in February of 2014 with the help of a midwife. The expectant mother opted against seeing a doctor or having ultrasounds during pregnancy. She didn’t know the baby had Down syndrome until a few days after birth.

Doctors discovered Joey’s cervical cancer during the care she received after childbirth. Joey endured a radical hysterectomy to treat it later that summer. They thought she was cured, and Joey didn’t receive radiation or chemotherapy. The cancer returned a year later, and despite more surgeries and aggressive treatment, it continued to grow.

The family opted to stop cancer treatment in October. When it became clear that Joey couldn’t beat this round of cancer, she asked to be taken home to Indiana to see it again before she died. She planned to return to her farm, but her condition worsened while she was in Indiana, and she opted to stay there. In November of 2015, the family announced Joey was receiving hospice care.

I Drove to Visit Joey in Hospice

I drove to Indiana to see her. I wanted to continue to share her story with the world—and I wanted to say goodbye to my friend and tell her I love her. When you usually say “See you later” to your friends when you leave the room, what do you say when you know you won’t?

I don’t remember what I said, but I know what she told me. With her permission, I wrote it down for everyone to read.

Someone had pushed Joey’s hospital bed against a bedroom wall. A pink pillow embroidered with her daughter’s name rested on the bed. Joey wore an auburn wig and sparkly eye shadow and sat in a chair near the fireplace. She was frail.

“I wasn’t mad at him; I wasn’t upset,” Joey said, talking about God when she learned her cancer had returned. “I was just greatly disappointed. I really thought we had it. I thought, ‘I’m going to be that exception. I’m going to be that statistic that stands out and says, ‘She fought it.’ We did the most extreme surgery we can do in the gynecologic world, and she did well.’ But for whatever reason, it wasn’t enough, and God had different plans. I was disappointed. I was exhausted.”

Joey Thought She Failed

Joey started crying and said that she felt like she had failed at something. She thought she had done everything, but she said God decided for her that singing for people on earth was her legacy and that he needed her singing in Heaven more.

She was worried that dying would hurt, but she wasn’t afraid.

“I pray that one morning I just don’t wake up,” she said. “But I don’t fear anything because I’m so close to God, and we’ve talked about it so many times. I know he’s close. And I know he loves me. I’m really at peace. I still believe there’s healing in prayer.”

She died about four months later. I didn’t see my friend again. Rory invited me to her funeral, but he didn’t want me to write about it for the paper. My editors at the newspaper where I worked said they would only allow me to attend the funeral if I wrote about it. One of them even came into the room where I was working to reinforce it.

“I mean it. Don’t go,” he said. He was looking out for me. He probably imagined I would try and sneak off and go—and he knew if I did the newspaper would fire me. He wanted me to know they were serious.

I Wasn’t Allowed to Attend Joey’s Funeral

So, I wrote her obituary but couldn’t attend her funeral. Rory was angry and thought I should come anyway. I remember him saying, “But Joey was your friend.” She was, and I loved her very much. I still do. But I couldn’t quit my career, and I thought Joey would have understood that.

What I know for sure is that she would be deeply upset about all of the public fighting that’s happening between Rory and his older daughters right now.

In case you haven’t heard, Rory and his daughters have made headlines for months. Rory got remarried in the summer of 2024, and Heidi and Hopie were worried that he left little Indiana with people they didn’t trust when the couple went on their honeymoon. Then, the women shared that their relationship with their father had deteriorated, and he was drastically limiting their contact with Indiana. More recently, Hopie and Rory revealed that Rory wasn’t her biological father. It was news to both of them, and Hopie asked that Rory not shame her mother (his wife before Joey) on social media when he shared the story. Hopie feels he did, anyway.

Everyone is likely doing what they think is best for themselves and for Indiana. But I can’t help but think that if Joey were still here, the public bickering wouldn’t be happening. She would have been a leading peacemaker in the family and instead of meeting by her grave, they would solve their problems around the kitchen table.

Photo by Andrew H. Walker