by Rory Feek
Joey was a homesteader at heart. Plopped straight out of a history book into modern-day society. She might not have worn the long cotton dresses and bonnets that Ma Ingalls wore from Little House on the Prairie, but she was all about it in her heart. She wanted a simpler . . . harder life.
Now, those words are opposites to me. But to Joey, they complemented each other. She knew that living simpler was harder, especially today with all the modern conveniences at our fingertips. Heck, with just the slightest push of a button on our cell phones, we can order just about anything our hearts desire, and it will magically show up on our mudroom porch two days later. But the things and the life that my wife valued most weren’t available from the app store. The things in life that mattered to her are tried-and-true, passed down from generation to generation. Life-tested over time and always found to have more meaning and purpose than the quick fixes found in self-help books, department store windows, or whiskey bottles. It’s not always the most fun, honestly. But it is the most satisfying. At least it was for her.
This was all new to me. The old was new. I could lead her into the future when it came to building a career and sharing our story, but she led me into the past when it came to living. Together, somehow, we managed to go in both directions simultaneously without too many problems. She had her gift, and I had mine. She needed the wings that came with my gift, and I desperately needed the roots that came with hers.
And I loved it too. Homesteading. At least the idea of it. I knew it would be good for me. Good for us.
The only blogs I read today are all about homesteading. About wonderful families who live a gazillion miles away in Oregon or Oklahoma but feel as if they’re right next door, at domain names like theelliotthomestead.com and urbanhomestead.org. People from all walks of life who have made a decision to simplify their lives, move outside of the city on a few acres of land, and grow their own food and raise animals and children differently. Reading their stories and watching their life choices is so incredibly inspiring to me, just like it was to Joey.
But, in the end, we never got a chance to homestead. Not really. I wish we could’ve. I think it would’ve been great fun. Hard—real, real hard—but fun. And Joey would’ve been great at it. I’d like to think that I would’ve been too. But I probably wouldn’t have been. Because I’ve learned that homesteading is probably not my true gift. Lifesteading is.
Not just raising food and vegetables in the garden for our family but growing life and love and hope . . . all on just a few acres or less. That is what I believe the new frontier is. It is what I do without even realizing I’m doing it and what I’m probably most passionate about. I can’t tell other people what they need to do for a living, but I’ll be the first to say that they need to be ready to give it up if it’s getting in between them and the person they love. The family they’ve been given. If I’ve learned nothing else in the half century or so I’ve lived . . . nothing matters more than love.
Sign of the Cross
Because He died, she lives.
It’s ragged and falling apart. The twine that was once wound tightly around the center of it is threadbare, and broken strands hang loosely. What do you expect? It was put there a year and a half ago as a temporary marker. Somehow, it’s become permanent.
Joey and I got engaged beside a cross not too different than the one that marks where she was laid to rest. Except it was a little bigger and made of metal. And it was for her brother Justin.
It marks the site where he flipped his Jeep the summer after his junior year in high school. The spot where Joey and her mama ran to the scene and held his hand as he gasped for air that wouldn’t come. At least, not enough to keep the brain alive . . . and a week later they turned off the machines, and Joey said goodbye to her brother.
Just a half mile or so down the lane from the farmhouse Joey grew up in, Justin’s cross is made of steel. Or aluminum, maybe . . . I’ve never asked Joey’s daddy, so I’m not sure. But I do know that every time I see it when we’re up there visiting, it looks strangely almost new. Freshly painted white—by Joey’s daddy, I’d guess. Knowing him, I’d think he not only drives by and stops from time to time to pay tribute to the place where his only son lost his life . . . but also carries a can or two of white paint in the trunk. I don’t blame him. If Joey’s cross were white and made of metal, I’d do the same thing.
But hers is made of wood and fashioned together with twine. And, strangely, the worse it looks, the more Joey would’ve liked it. The more rugged the better. And so I just clear the grass from around the base of it each time I’m out there and watch as it deteriorates a little more and a little more.
Our old farmhand Thomas Travioli stopped by the farm the other day—he’s the one who made her cross as well as the wooden box she’s buried in. I told him about the rough condition of the cross, and he offered to make another. To replace it anytime I need him to. I’ll probably take him up on it at some point, but not yet. It’s just getting good. Getting right.
Joey loved things well-worn. A Carhartt jacket faded from the sun, with the sleeves frayed . . . dusty Justin boots with the crepe soles nearly walked off . . . a garden tiller that barely ran but had been in her mama’s hands before hers and her mama’s mama’s before that. That’s just who she was. What she loved.
And so my guess is she’s up in heaven pointing down at it, showing the cross to some cowgirl friends, sayin’, “Ain’t she pretty?” and “Bet she’ll last another year or so.” My wife was always frugal, so she’d probably be thrilled to have me get as much use out of those two pieces of wood as I can.
I had plans to have a stone up by now. A double stone, actually, with her name and the dates on one side and my name on the other. We could just add my dates in when the time comes. I have an audio recording on my iPhone from an afternoon in the fall of 2015 when we were talking about it. When she told me what she wanted her “arrangements” to be, I asked if it’d be okay if I put up one stone for both of us. She told me it would, but even now as I listen back, I can almost hear a “I’d rather you just put up a wooden cross” in her voice.
Honestly, I never thought of it. It was something Thomas just made himself and asked me if I wanted him to put it up there when the service was through. I told him that’d be nice. And it was. It still is.
It is strange that our marriage began in front of a cross. And in some ways ended in front of another. I feel funny even typing that last line. Because I don’t at all feel like our marriage has ended. I feel like it’s still going, just as strong as ever.
But the cross thing. The fact that in that spot where Joey’s brother died, our love began. That’s something. And even more so when I think how much that is like Christ’s story. He died on a cross, so we can live.
It means death. And it means life.
And that’s how I see Joey’s cross too. That wooden marker. That sign. It marks the place where her body was put to rest. Where her life ended.
But it is also a reminder that she lives. That she is with our Lord in heaven right now rejoicing.
Amen.
From the Cradle to the Grave
Two years. That’s how long it was, almost to the day. From the morning that our baby girl was born till the afternoon we laid her mama to rest in the grove of trees behind our farmhouse.
Having a baby was my wife’s greatest fear. The one thing that the bravest woman I know was scared to death of. She not only wasn’t going to have a baby, she wouldn’t even talk about it for the first ten years or so of our marriage. Until one day, when she finally faced her fear and gave it to God. And He not only gave her peace in return but also gave her the greatest joy she’d ever experienced. Being a mama.
And then, two years later, He took it all away. Or let it go away. But why? Why would He do that when she was so brave and trusted Him so much?
I so wish I had the answers for that one, but I don’t. Only more questions. Lots of them. Serious questions . . . like, am I to blame
? Was it something I did? Or didn’t do? Was the cancer somehow tied to having a baby? Or to her past? Or mine?
I’ve read where studies show that sometimes the root of Joey’s kind of cancer can be passed on through sexual activity. Since her experience before me was very limited and mine before her wasn’t, am I a part of the reason that she is gone? That’s a hard question. The hardest. But I ask it sometimes to myself.
But there are no answers. No real ones. I’m sure there are researchers and doctors out there who will have an opinion, but my guess is that their guess is as good as mine.
Only God knows the answers to the hard questions. And He’s probably not going to share them with us this side of heaven. And when we get there, something tells me that they ain’t gonna matter.
And so I’ll just be thankful for today. For this moment. For the hard questions and the answers that don’t come. For the blessing of getting to have been Joey’s husband. For being her husband still. And Indiana’s father. And Heidi and Hopie’s.
Always and Forever
Step up and sing . . . we’ll find out why later.
When my wife passed away, I was pretty certain that my time on stage was finished. That I would probably never step up to a microphone again with a guitar in my hands. But, of course, I was wrong.
I was ready to stop. For lots of reasons. First off, Joey had to stop. That was enough reason all by itself. But there were others.
I never really loved it. The being-on-stage part. Being in the spotlight. I loved being beside Joey. Whether it’s on a stage in front of ten thousand people or on a porch with just us and the sun going down. By her side was where I wanted to be.
My wife loved performing. It was in her DNA. And in her smile. There were parts of it that I liked and was good at, but it wasn’t something I loved. So why get back on stage? That’s a good question. I’ve been asking it for almost two years.
This coming weekend is Joey’s birthday. She would have been forty-two years old. And as the sun sets on that day, I will be on the stage in our concert hall, singing songs and telling stories. Something I didn’t think I’d be doing again. At least, not anytime soon. But, strangely, I am looking forward to it. Not because I’ll be back in a spotlight or because they’re both sold-out shows. But for a different reason. Because I am looking for something. The reason God has me here. Why do we have a concert hall in a barn across the driveway with a big stage and lights and a lobby and a parking lot and all that goes with it? I could probably drive a thousand miles in any direction and not find another house with one of these in the driveway. Or, at least, not a farm with one.
And so there’s a reason it’s here. That it’s still here. I knew why it was here before, when Joey and I were singing on the stage together . . . that was easy. It was so my wife could have a normal life, be at home and be a wife and a mother and grow a garden and still have a music career. And it was perfect. Tailor-made for her and for us. But what about when the us became a me? What is the concert hall for now?
I have a hunch I’m getting ready to find out. Maybe not this next weekend. It might take a few weekends of shows or a year’s worth, but I believe that I’ll know. That God will reveal it to me.
I think it has something to do with storytelling. That’s probably a no-brainer. But maybe a unique way of telling our story. And I also have a feeling it has less to do with “entertaining” a crowd and more to do with the possibility of impacting each person in the audience in a special way.
And that’s why I’m doing these shows. All the proceeds for Friday and Saturday are going to Music Health Alliance, an organization that helps families in the music business sort through the muck and the mire of the medical and health insurance world. They have been invaluable in helping Joey and me through her journey, and even now, they help me wade through the medical bills that come in and determine which ones are actually covered and which ones aren’t.
For the past six weeks we’ve been working on the barn. The concert hall. Pouring time and money into it. Giving it a “fresh coat of paint,” so to speak. And it’s sort of a ground-up overhaul. Some things about it are completely different. There’s a hayloft in there now and new lights and sound and colors and pictures on the walls. In some ways it’s the same as it was two years ago when Joey and I played our last show in the barn . . . but in other ways, it’s a brand-new barn.
And I’m excited about the changes that are taking place. It looks incredible. Every day I walk outside and see something new that has been added or changed and am in awe of how beautiful it is. And all of us who are working on it keep saying the same thing . . . “She would love this.” And she would. She absolutely would.
Joey would also love that I’ll be getting back on stage again. I know she would. As her daddy reminded me the last time Indy and I were in Indiana visiting, “When Joey met you, you were singing and telling stories on stage at the Bluebird Cafe . . . that is who she first fell in love with.” And he’s right. If she couldn’t be on the stage with me, she would be in the front row, cheering me on. With that million-dollar smile on her face . . . And every now and then, after a song she especially loved, she would wink her left eye like she used to do, to let me know she was proud of me.
Though Joey won’t be here for her birthday or for the concerts, she will be here . . . in my heart. In all of our hearts. And she’ll be standing beside me as I step up to the microphone and simultaneously take a step into the future, believing that something beautiful will come from something difficult. It always does.
And though there’ll be three hundred people in the red-and-gray chairs that fill the room, hanging on every word . . . I will be singing to her. For her. With her.
Always and forever.
Last Letters
Finding the good in goodbye.
It was the twentieth of February 2016 and seventy degrees outside.
I know it was because I wrote about it in my journal. It was unseasonably warm for a winter’s day in Indiana. And I had taken Indy outside to play . . . a couple of times. We had walked down by the Gaithers’ pond and watched the geese and black swans swim and walked to a playground nearby behind the Nazarene church, and I had pushed Indy on the swings. Then she played in the leaves in the driveway. It’s all there in my journal, but I also remember it like it was yesterday. Probably because the weather was so nice that day after what seemed like months of snow and ice and freezing temperatures.
In the evening I grilled chicken on the back deck, and we made mojitos (one of our favorite drinks we had learned to make from our many trips to Key West, Florida). When the chicken was ready, I sat and had dinner with Joey beside her bed. For dessert we shared a cup of coffee and a homemade Almond Joy that Joey’s best friend, Julie, had made and left in the freezer for us to pull out and enjoy whenever we had a sweet tooth. After the sun set, we watched some of the movie Grumpy Old Men on the TV in the corner above her nightstand, and then I tucked her in. Joey said she wanted to pray, and so I knelt down beside her and took her hand.
She wanted to say the prayer “Now I lay me down to sleep,” and so we did, or at least we tried to. But she couldn’t remember the next line, and so I said, “I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” The morphine causing her memory to be as shaky as her hands were becoming. We prayed that prayer a couple of times, and then I kissed her softly, and she told me she loved me three times, and I did the same, just as we always did. Then she asked if I had her dress ready.
“Yes, your sisters have it ready,” I answered.
“And my jean jacket to go over it?” she asked.
“It’s ready too,” I said.
“I finished the letters today . . . will you print them for me?” she asked.
She had been talking about writing goodbye letters to her mama and daddy and our girls for weeks. Months. With all the morphine coursing through her veins, it was hard for her to stay focused long enough to finish them, but she’d finally written what she wanted to say and what s
he wanted them to read. To have when she’s gone.
“Of course I will,” I told her.
And then she reached over to a lamp beside her bed and pulled down what looked like a braided ponytail that had been hanging on the handle. It was some tail hair from her horse, Ria. The red roan that she’d received for her fortieth birthday but got to ride only once. She held it softly with both hands and said, “I’d like it to be in my hands, like this . . .” and she gently wrapped the braid around her thin, frail fingers.
I told her that it would all be just as she wanted. And then assured her again that everything was going to be okay and that I would take good care of Indiana. She smiled softy and said, “I know you will.” Then said she would be watching from above . . . and to forgive her if she nags me.
Who says something like that? With a kind smile, knowing what the coming days would bring? I don’t think I could have. I can only pray that I might have half her love and compassion when my time comes.
A few days after Joey passed away, I handed out the letters to her parents and to our older daughters, Heidi and Hopie, and one to her oldest sister, Jody, who had taken the last five months off from work and stayed by Joey’s side and even slept in the bed across the room from her for the same length of time.
Besides the printed letters that Joey had written, in each envelope was a check. A portion of the life insurance money she wanted each of them to have. Joey’s hope was that the money, like the letters and words she penned, might be a blessing.