Nearly five months after the death of his wife, Joey Feek, country singer Rory Feek fulfilled one of her last wishes and reflected on how he believes she is smiling down on her family from heaven.
The Christian Joey + Rory singer was stricken with cervical cancer in 2014, and then suffered a recurrence in 2015. She passed away in March after a brave battle at the age of 40. Throughout Joey's illness, the couple served as an inspiration to millions of fans who connected to their faith-based way of life as shared by Rory on his blog, This Life I Live.
Rory has continued to update his blog following his wife's passing, and frequently opens up about how he and the couple's young daughter, Indiana, are coping with the loss of Joey.
In his latest blog post, Rory revealed that before she passed away, Joey asked him to figure out a way to take her three sisters on a trip out West, something she'd wanted to do since she was able to make the trip herself in 2002 when she and Rory honeymooned in Montana.
"This past February, with snow on the ground outside her window at the little house by the Gaither pond in Indiana, Joey looked at the beautiful view from her bedside, and remembered another view that she loved," Rory explains.
"And then with her three sisters gathered around her, Joey told stories about our trips out West to the Big Sky country. She showed them pictures we had taken during some of the adventures our family has had out there over the years. And then she asked me to find a way to take her three sisters and their families out West for the first time this summer."
Determined to fulfill his wife's final wishes, Rory took her sisters and their children on the trip-along with little Indiana. But while the family had a wonderful time, it was nevertheless bittersweet.
"For all the fun we had... the trip was hard on me. Hard on us all actually," he writes. "We all wished that Joey was there with us. At the cabin, I would watch Joey's sisters all playing with their kids and I it broke my heart to know that Joey couldn't be there to play with Indiana too. And I know that it hurt her sisters too. But still, we all carried Joey's memory with us on every mountain we drove up and every trail we walked down."
Rory also shared how the family carved all their names on a giant table in the cabin where they stayed, adding them to his and Joey's, which he put on during a previous stay.
"Like the names and dates that are etched in that table, this trip will be forever etched in each of our hearts," he writes.
The blog also features a number of photos from the trip, including that of a beautiful rainbow, little Indy playing in the fields, and the family enjoying the hot tub.
"It had been a week to remember - to remember Joey, and smile - because we all knew that somewhere up there, my sweet wife was smiling too," concluded Rory. "Watching her wish for her sisters come true."
The couple's final album, Hymns That Are Important to Us, debuted at No. 1 on both the Top Country Albums chart and Top Christian Albums chart upon its release.
