This Life I Live: One Man's Extraordinary, Ordinary Life and the Woman Who Changed It Forever

by Rory Feek

  And so I promised her I would. She told me that she had made a decision. No more food, she said. And I knew what that decision meant. No more living. It wasn’t much of a sacrifice for her, really, because every time she took even the smallest bite of anything during those last few weeks, and months, actually, she paid a terrible price for it. Her body rejected it, and the pain she had to endure was unbearable. There was no joy in eating, and it was literally the only thing left that she could do.

  Once that was gone, there was nothing left. But the future.

  It wasn’t fast, and it wasn’t easy. As a matter of fact, at times, it was beyond terrible. If it had been legal to give my wife a shot, like the vet gave her dog, Rufus, in his last hours, or to push a button that would make her hurting stop, I would’ve done it. I wouldn’t have even blinked. She had already been through too much, and she didn’t deserve to go through the pain and agony that the last few days brought. But she did.

  Joey was incredibly brave in the end. Brave in how she lived and, even more so, in how she died. It was my honor to be by her side through it all. And to try to put what she, and we, were experiencing into words on my blog and share it with others. She was brave that way too. She didn’t have to share what she went through, but she wanted to.

  I wrote about the last few months in detail on my blog. It’s too much to share here in just one book.

  Sixty-One

  SECOND GUESSES

  After everything that happened and all that Joey went through, people have often asked me, “If you could do it again, would you do anything different?” Well, yes, I would. And I know Joey would too. She told me so. Many times.

  We aren’t people who second-guess our decisions. We don’t think in terms of what-might-have-beens or what-ifs. That’s just not how we think. We believe that the choices we’ve made are the choices we were supposed to make, and they become part of our story . . . how we get to where we are in life. So Joey and I don’t have any regrets. That being said, it doesn’t mean we wouldn’t do things differently if given the chance. The truth is, we would change one thing if we could . . . and one thing we would do exactly the same.

  When it comes to living or trying to find a cure to keep living, we would have chosen a different path. But when it comes to dying, we wouldn’t have changed anything. The path we took at the end was the right one for us. For Joey.

  But the path that got us to that final path, we wouldn’t walk down again. At least, I don’t think we would.

  If God gave us a do-over and we could go back a year in time and be at the place where Joey faced the fact that she might die from cancer, we wouldn’t have done the surgery, and Joey wouldn’t have done the chemo or radiation. If she could have, I know my wife would’ve chosen an even more holistic path than the one we took. One that would’ve concentrated completely on natural ways to try to kill the cancer or stop it from spreading. And we would’ve removed the medical path of cutting and burning and poisoning the body to heal it. In the end, Joey felt like that practice wasn’t the best one. At least not for her. She would’ve done little or no medicine and pursued avenues to remove the cancer from her body naturally.

  She would want me to say that. To tell people that. It’s not that the doctors or hospitals that took care of her did anything wrong, because they didn’t. They were all amazing. But she had months and months in bed to study and read and research possible alternatives, and, in the end, she thinks some of those alternative approaches are the future. So do I. For whatever it’s worth.

  In some ways I think I let my wife down when it came to that. I wish I was smarter and could’ve waded through all the options a little better and helped her make a different decision. But I didn’t. I did the best I could with what I had. And so did my wife.

  That truth is still holding true today.

  Sixty-Two

  LIFE IMITATING ART IMITATING LIFE

  Joey took her last breath on this earth on a Friday. The following Tuesday, we laid her down in the soft soil just a few hundred yards from her garden.

  She wanted to be there. To be here. And I’m so thankful. From where I sit in our bedroom upstairs at our farmhouse writing this book, I can see her. Or, at least, I can see where she rests. It’s the same place where we shot a video a few years ago. It was for a song that we loved and recorded called “When I’m Gone” that a good friend of Joey’s wrote. In the video that we made in 2013, we’d painted a picture of a world where I am living here alone, and Joey is buried in that very grove of sassafras trees in the back field. Life imitating art, I think they call it.

  It’s hard for me to watch it now. That video. But I do. Quite often, actually. And I can’t help but see the irony in it. The magic of it. That we recorded a song and made a make-believe video that came true in real life. Nothing is by chance, in my opinion. God knew. And He wanted us to know that He knew. And I think He wanted others to know and see that He is here. Always here with us. All of us.

  In the end, I think He wanted me to have Joey singing to me. Sharing the words that He knew I would need to hear from her, for years and years to come.

  A BRIGHT SUNRISE WILL CONTRADICT THE HEAVY FOG THAT WEIGHS YOU DOWN.

  IN SPITE OF ALL THE FUNERAL SONGS, THE BIRDS WILL MAKE THEIR JOYFUL SOUNDS.

  YOU’LL WONDER WHY THE EARTH STILL MOVES,

  YOU’LL WONDER HOW YOU’LL CARRY ON,

  BUT YOU’LL BE OKAY ON THAT FIRST DAY WHEN I’M GONE.

  DUSK WILL COME WITH FIREFLIES AND WHIP-POOR-WILL AND CRICKET’S CALL.

  AND EVERY STAR WILL TAKE ITS PLACE IN SILV’RY GOWN AND PURPLE SHAWL.

  YOU’LL LIE DOWN IN OUR BIG BED, DREAD THE DARK, AND DREAD THE DAWN,

  BUT YOU’LL BE ALL RIGHT ON THAT FIRST NIGHT WHEN I’M GONE.

  YOU WILL REACH FOR ME IN VAIN, YOU’LL BE WHISPERING MY NAME

  AS IF SORROW WERE YOUR FRIEND, AND THIS WORLD SO ALIEN.

  BUT LIFE WILL CALL WITH DAFFODILS AND MORNING GLORIOUS BLUE SKIES.

  YOU’LL THINK OF ME, SOME MEMORY, AND SOFTLY SMILE TO YOUR SURPRISE.

  AND EVEN THOUGH YOU LOVE ME STILL, YOU WILL KNOW WHERE YOU BELONG.

  JUST GIVE IT TIME, WE’LL BOTH BE FINE WHEN I’M GONE.

  Epilogue

  AFTER HAPPILY EVER AFTER

  There are chapters in a person’s life that you don’t want to write. Things that you don’t want to talk about. I would’ve thought for me it would be parts of my past that I am embarrassed about or ashamed of. But, strangely, I don’t have any problem writing about those things. I can see now where they have led and what they’ve taught me and how important they are to the bigger story that God has been telling with my life. And my hope is that in my being honest about who I was . . . who I am . . . it might encourage someone, the way that my wife’s courage in life and in death has encouraged me and others.

  The past is easy for me to write about, but the future is different. It’s the unknown. The abyss. A place I’ve yet to be and a loneliness I’ve yet to fully experience. I’m not sure I know how to write about that. Or, at least, write about it honestly. But I will try.

  We are here. Our little Indiana is in a sweet school about twenty minutes from our farmhouse and is loving it, and I am loving watching her grow and learn new things every day. She is joy. Complete and total love. Even when she’s grumpy and throws her sweet potato across the room, all I can do is smile. I believe that Indy is what God has given me to balance the pain. To keep this awful, wonderful life in perspective in a time when the wisdom of His choices are difficult to understand. Indiana’s smile erases the questions. It has a way of taking the past and leaving it there and snapping me into the present. Being here, with her, with our older girls . . . right now.

  And the work that comes with taking care of a two-year-old by yourself has a way of keeping you from worrying about the future. What life is going to be like for her. For us. They will come—those answers—in time. But for now, I have a baby in a high chair to feed. Baths to run, b
ooks to read, and hugs to give. That is all enough.

  Joey’s garden is in full bloom. It looks beautiful, filled with all the life-giving plants that she loved. I spend most early mornings holding a water hose that is pointed at a row of tomato plants or cabbage or carrots, just as Joey used to do. It’s funny, I didn’t like it then, when she was here. That was her passion, not mine. I’m ashamed to admit that it was work for me to join her in the garden. To help her weed and harvest and can. Probably much like how it was work for her to sit with me as I was editing music videos or working on something creative. But that’s changed now. I like being in the garden. I can see why she loved it.

  I do lots of things now that I didn’t do before, besides caring for the baby. I am learning to cook again and do piles of dishes and laundry and clean out closets and do things that she gladly made happen all those years without me even knowing how much work it was. And, surprisingly, I’ve enjoyed it. Most of it, anyway. I can feel the sense of accomplishment that Joey felt in those little things. In taking care of the ones you love. In serving them. The only part that is really hard for me is knowing that I could’ve done more when she was here. Served her more. Lightened her load. Loved her more. We all want that when someone leaves us, I guess. I know I do.

  Sometimes people, complete strangers, will stop me on the street and ask me how I’m doing. I will smile and tell them that I’m doing pretty well, and strangely . . . they won’t believe me. They touch my shoulder and lean in. “Are you really?” they say. I find that funny. That people who don’t know me know me well enough to ask that. To care. It’s beautiful how the Internet—which I mostly dislike—has a way of connecting lives and stories. Of creating relationship, or something very similar.

  I am grieving. My heart and my soul are in mourning. Still feeling the immeasurable loss of the greatest person that I have ever known, the greatest joy I’ve ever felt, and the greatest pain I will ever experience . . . all wrapped into one terrible, beautiful thing.

  I miss my wife. I am lost without her. Empty again. I haven’t been empty like this in a good while. You wouldn’t know it to look at me, because my faith is strong and resilient, and I have learned to do what I must do, even when I don’t want to. Like moving on with my life. I must. There is no other option. No real one. The baby needs me; my older children need me . . . and I need all of them.

  But in the hurt that I feel, there is even greater love. Something that Joey put there. Her, and God. And though she is no longer here with me, her love is. I can feel it. It’s tangible and real. It’s just as strong as it ever was. Stronger. And it carries me . . . up, up, up. To a place of hope. A hope that this isn’t the end of the story. Not by a long way.

  Even now, I believe that God is going to give us a great story. Me and Indiana. And our older girls. And when I’m gone, it will be their stories that God is writing. That their lives are telling. And I will have been part of it, just as Joey is part of mine. The best part of mine.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  RORY FEEK is a true renaissance man, known as one of Nashville’s premiere songwriters, entrepreneurs, and out-of-the-box thinkers. He is a world-class storyteller, crossing all creative mediums, from music and film to books and the Internet.

  As a blogger, Rory shares his heart and story with the world through thislifeilive.com, which has more than two million Facebook followers. The love story of he and his wife, the story of her battle and loss to cancer, and his vignettes of unwavering faith and hope in the face of tragedy inspire millions of readers.

  As a songwriter, Rory has written multiple number-one songs, including Blake Shelton’s “Some Beach,” Easton Corbin’s “A Little More Country Than That,” and Clay Walker’s “The Chain of Love,” and has had dozens of his other songs recorded by Kenny Chesney, Randy Travis, Reba, Trisha Yearwood, Waylon Jennings, and many others.

  As an artist, Rory is half of the Grammy-nominated county music duo Joey + Rory. He and his wife, Joey Martin, toured the world, sold hundreds of thousands of records, and have a weekly hit television show that airs all across the country on RFD-TV. Their latest album, Hymns That Are Important to Us, sold seventy thousand copies the first week and debuted at number one on Billboard album charts.

  As a filmmaker, Rory has directed his first feature-length film, Josephine, an epic love story set during the declining months of the Civil War, with a screenplay he co-wrote with Aaron Carnahan. Rory has three other screenplays in process. He also writes, shoots, and edits Joey + Rory music videos and is the creator of the television shows and specials in which the duo has appeared.

  Rory and his two-year-old daughter, Indiana, live an hour south of Nashville in an 1870s farmhouse near their family-owned diner, Marcy Jo’s Mealhouse.

  Table of Contents

  1 Famous for Love

  2 Stronger

  3 The Middle of Nowhere

  4 Trailer Trash

  5 Mama Bare

  6 A Hero’s Story

  7 Things That Go Away

  8 Uncle Goombah

  9 Froot Loots

  10 Nashville

  11 Joining Up to Sing

  12 Your First Time Lasts

  13 Forgiven Greatly

  14 Marine Biology

  15 From Texas to Tennessee

  16 Song Righter

  17 Baggage Claim

  18 Father Figure

  19 Duct-Tape Parenting

  20 Self-Help Was No Help

  21 Die Living

  22 Never Gonna Happen

  23 A New Family

  24 Circa 1870

  25 Something Good

  26 Farmer Boy

  27 Killing Myself

  28 My Name Is Joey

  29 A Girl, a Dog, and a Truck

  30 Nothing to Remember

  31 Sign Language

  32 The Right Left Hand

  33 A Clean Slate

  34 Crossing Our Hearts

  35 Alter Call

  36 Sexual Healing

  37 Honeymooners

  38 Love Doesn’t Exist

  39 A Green Heart

  40 Changing Lives One Sip at a Time

  41 Nothing Matters

  42 Money

  43 Rhymes with Tex

  44 The Name Game

  45 Ten Percent

  46 On the Same Page

  47 Baby Crazy

  48 Almond Eyes

  49 Life Is Complicated

  50 Fame to Farm

  51 Turn, Turn, Turn

  52 Ups and Downs

  53 Hurt People Hurt People

  54 Josephine

  55 Something Worse

  56 Surgery and More

  57 No More

  58 Crying and Driving

  59 Indiana Home

  60 Saying Good-Bye

  61 Second Guesses

  62 Life Imitating Art Imitating Life

  Epilogue: After Happily Ever After

  About the Author