Even though it's been six months since Joey Feek entered into the arms of Jesus, her grieving husband, Rory, revealed he is still unable to order a headstone for her grave or perform onstage without his other half.
"I don't know why, I just can't," Rory, 51, told CBS Sunday Morning. "I don't know if it's that she's so simple, and a wooden cross is part of what she would like. It probably has something to do with permanence. So, for now, I can sit out here and feel like it's -- it's maybe just temporary. Although I know it's not."
Joey, who with her husband made up the popular country music duo Joey + Rory, died in March at age 40 after a two-year battle with cervical cancer. After her death, Joey was buried on the family's 60-acre farm in Tennessee. Rory revealed that he placed a bench near his wife's grave so that he can sit and sip his morning coffee with her.
"I got a place for my coffee and hers," he said. "And we still have coffee together."
While Joey + Rory's last album, "Hymns That Are Important," topped country charts after its release earlier this year, Rory admitted he's not yet able to perform: "I don't want to go on stage without her," he says. "That's what I'm thinking about right now. I just don't want to make music without her. But I also know time changes things. So I won't say never. It's just where I am today."
The Feeks were married for 13 years and had one child together, 2-year-old daughter Indiana. Joey was also the mother figure for Heidi and Hopie, Rory's two daughters from a previous relationship, whom he raised as a single dad.
During a recent interview with People Magazine, Rory revealed that after receiving her cancer diagnosis, one of the hardest things for Joey was realizing her husband would once again be a single father.
"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," he said.
"[Joey] just couldn't bear the idea that she was going to leave me a single parent again because I'd already been through it. She told me right on the porch out there," Rory 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.'"
Today, Heidi, 29, and Hopie, 27, help their father raise Indy, who recently learned how to crawl.
"God just keeps showing up," Rory said, "and magically making what are our worst fears beautiful."
