Country Star Rory Feek Keeps Promise to Late Wife Joey by Attending Grammys
Country music singer and “This Life I Live” author Rory Feek said his late wife Joey made a prediction to him about this year’s Grammys that came true.
“Well, I was with her father, Jack Martin and that was an honor because he was playing guitar for her [for] years and years, before I ever did,” Feek told FBN’s Maria Bartiromo about how he felt while accepting the Grammy for Best Roots Gospel Album for the Rory + Joey duo’s “Hymns that are Important to Us,” nearly a year after Joey’s passing.
“But one of my favorite parts was to be on the stage knowing that she had told me last year before she passed away, ‘you know, if we win a Grammy Award, I’m going to know before you will.’ So that was pretty special,” Feek said.
On the difficult, yet special, months with Joey before her death, Feek said, “Most of them [were] amazing, even in the end, we had a very long goodbye and it couldn’t have been any better. For being terrible, it was pretty amazing.”
On the marriage lessons Feek hoped others would learn from his and Joey’s time together, he said, “I think that magic’s possible, first off, it’s possible, and that some of the biggest obstacles can be overcome, you know, with faith, I think is really the only way we were able to overcome them,”Feek said.
“My wife, you know, lived life in a particular way. She knew what was most important and lived it every day, and not just when things were good. And at the very end, when she [was] in her last weeks of life and she’d been in a hospital bed for months, she’s planting seeds and eggshells to grow back in our garden because she wants to raise good food for her baby and her husband to eat,” Feek said.
According to Feek, Joey’s optimism, even through the most difficult times, helped uplift those around her.
“Her hope, right to the very end -- even though it was a terrible struggle for her and she went through a lot, she remained positive, she made me smile, she worked hard to make me smile, when, I don’t know how she did it,” he said.