This past week, the world watched teary-eyed as America’s sweetheart, Joey Feek, went from this world to the next.
Joey — who along with her husband Rory was one half of the country music duo Joey + Rory — passed away on Friday, March 4, at age 40 after a months-long battle with metastatic cervical cancer.
Four days later, country music’s brightest star was laid to rest, surrounded by friends and family, at the couple’s farm outside of Nashville.
Now, Rory Feek, her husband and creative partner of 10 years, has taken to his blog This Life I Live to chronicle Joey’s final farewell in a touching and beautiful photo series of the funeral and wake.
Throughout Joey’s illness, Rory has detailed her ups and downs, and served as her conduit to the loyal fan base who saw her through every twist and turn of the battle, from her initial diagnosis after the birth of their first child to her terminal diagnosis in November.
Now, following Joey’s solemn burial, here is Rory’s heart-wrenching farewell.
All of Joey's loved ones gathered together in the barn behind the Feeks' farmhouse in Tennessee.
The barn, where Rory and Joey often hosted performances, became a place to eulogize and remember Joey. Everyone from her childhood pastor to her sisters spoke, sang, or reminisced.
A beautiful photo of Joey kept a watchful eye on the proceedings. At the end of the speeches and remembrances, Rory approached the photo to give his wife a final kiss.
After all of Joey's loved ones gathered in the barn, they walked out across the lawn to a quiet grove of sassafras trees, where the family cemetery is situated.
Joey's casket, a simple wooden box, was borne across the lawn on an old-fashioned wagon from the 1800s, drawn by a team of mules and guarded closely by her six "cowboys," the men she chose to be her pallbearers.
Accompanied by the sound of the mourners singing "Down By the River to Pray," Joey's cowboys took up the weight of her plain wooden box…
…with Rory following close behind, daughter Indiana sitting on his shoulders. Together, they watched solemnly as the procession bore Joey to her final resting place.
Finally, in the quiet, shady grove, Joey was laid to rest, with all of her loved ones watching closely over her, and the Feeks' pastor Mike Glenn speaking about her.
He spoke to the gathered crowd "of the better place that Joey’s in and also of the better place that the world is because Joey was in it."
Afterward, in a truly beautiful celebration of Joey's life, the family gathered near Joey's beloved garden to toast the woman who changed each of their lives.
As Rory put it on his blog, they "spent the afternoon a few steps from Joey’s garden, hugging and loving and celebrating the beautiful life she lived."
Friends from near and far made a fuss over little Indiana.
The sweet toddler, who celebrated her second birthday just last month, is a cheerful and joyful reminder of the wonderful life that Joey lived and of the love that she and Rory shared.
"It was an afternoon filled with so much joy and love," Rory wrote on his blog. "Even our little Indiana had a wonderful time…"
By the early evening, the crowd of mourners was dissipating after spending the afternoon comforting one another and celebrating Joey.
In the quiet, Rory and Indy returned to the cemetery to say one last farewell.
There, they'll always be able to visit Joey in her final resting place, marked with a modest gravestone, under the shade of the tree.
Her husband and daughter will be able to come visit and lay flowers whenever they want, and she'll never be far from their thoughts.
But Joey will not never be completely alone.
As Rory wrote on his blog, "Two of Joey’s friends stayed behind to let her know they will be keeping her company from now on."
Together, the family will take comfort in knowing that Joey didn't leave this world without accomplishing all of her hopes and dreams.
Through sheer willpower, she got to see her little girl reach her second birthday, then told her husband that "the flowers would soon be blooming back in Tennessee. It’s time to go home."
If you are touched by Joey Feek's remarkable life and story, SHARE her beautiful farewell and remember her as the flowers bloom this spring.
