Rory Feek is remembering his wife Joey on the eighth anniversary of her passing. The singer reflect on how things have changed in the past near-decade.
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Feek says he sometimes get lost in memories. Feeks remembers sitting with his wife on the porch at their farm. He also remembers the day that he lost her, and the anguish that he felt in that moment. He said that his wife wanted him to eventually find love again.
Feek wrote, “That day as Joey held Indiana, who was only 18 months old, in her arms, she began crying. Angry. I tried to comfort her and said, ‘It’s going to be okay… I’ll be right here with you.’ She said, ‘I’m not crying for me, I’m upset for you. I don’t want you to be a single father again.’ I almost couldn’t believe that even in her fear and pain, all she could think about was me, and Indiana and how she was going to be leaving all this work to me.”
He continued, “I pulled her close and told her that, “If that happens, it’s okay honey… I’m perfect for the job. I already know how to do it.” And then as if that wasn’t already hard enough, she looked at me and said, ‘If I don’t make it… I want you to love again.’ Now it was me who was angry. I told her, ‘I don’t want to hear that.’ But she gently held my hand and said, ‘I want you to. You’ll need someone. You and Indy both will.'”
Rory Feek Finds Love Again
It took Feek almost a decade but he found love again. Feek revealed that he is in a relationship with a school teacher named Rebecca. Rebecca teaches Feek’s 10-year-old daughter Indiana. The two bonded over a shared grief. Rebecca also lost her own mother and sister to cancer and could share in Feek and Indiana’s grief.
“She has been very patient and respectful of the love Joey and I had, of what I felt and still feel for Joey,” Feek continues. “She never pushes, never pries, never once asks for more than today together. And that has been part of what’s made me love her like I do.”
Feek said his wife understood that it would take him years to recover and that he would always love her. He continued, “I think she knew then, what it would take me years to learn. That love is bigger than time. Bigger than fear. That love doesn’t have to end, for it to begin again.”
[Photo by Terry Wyatt/Getty Images for Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum]
