Country star Rory Feek has told of the heartbreaking moment his dying wife realized she would be leaving him to raise their one-year-old daughter Indiana by himself.
Six months after Joey Feek tragically lost her battle to cancer at the age of 40, the 51-year-old spoke out in a tearful interview with People.
Rory, who also has two older daughters from a previous marriage, said: “When the time came that we realized that Joey was most likely not going to make it through this cancer … one of the hardest things was coming to realize that I was going to be back here again where I was before, but this time raising Indiana.”
Speaking from the farm in Pottsville, Tennessee he once shared with Joey, Rory explained his late wife was devastated that he would have to become a single parent for the second time in his life.
“She just couldn’t bear the idea that she was going to leave me a single parent again because I’d already been through it,” he said.
Rory, who raised his eldest daughters Heidi, 29, and Hopie, 27, as a single dad, started to break down as he remembered the conversation they had about what his life would be like without her.
“She told me right on the porch out there,” he recalled.
“She said, ‘It’s not fair. You’re not supposed to have to do this again.’ I said, “But on the other hand, I’m perfect. I already know how.”
Rory welcomed two-and-a-half-year-old Indiana, who has Down syndrome, into the world just months before Joey was diagnosed with cancer in 2014.
Despite his painful loss, Rory is relying on his family and his faith to help him look to the future.
He said: “God just keeps showing up and magically making what are our worst fears beautiful.”
Rory’s daughters Heidi and Hopie are now helping him raise their younger half-sister and the doting dad is honoring his wife with the film To Joey, With Love.
The collection of edited home videos will be shown in select cities on September 20 and October 6.
Just last week, Rory shared an emotional video featuring clips of Joey with Indiana, as he revealed how his youngest daughter has given him strength since she passed away.
Rory took to his personal blog to share the footage highlighting the tender moments between Indiana and her late mother, Joey, who was also his musical partner in Joey + Rory.
“God doesn’t make mistakes,” Rory wrote, as he described watching Indiana stir in her crib last Tuesday morning.
“Indiana is not less than any other child. Different is not less. Having Down syndrome doesn’t make her life any less meaningful than someone else’s or her dreams or feelings any less important. Not as a child and I suspect, not in the years to come when she grows to be an adult.”