Joey Feek, of the country music duo Joey + Rory, said an emotional goodbye to her stepdaughters recently after stopping cancer treatments.
Feek decided to stop her treatments for stage four cervical cancer after undergoing a radical hysterectomy in 2014, followed by radiation and chemotherapy. When things failed to get better,
doctors said there was not much else they could do, according to a blog post by her husband Rory.
Rory Feek's daughters from a previous marriage, Heidi and Hopie, visited the couple and their young daughter Indiana recently to say their goodbyes to Joey.
"The dictionary says a 'stepmother' is: the wife of one's father by a later marriage,"
Rory Feek wrote on his blog. "I don't think I've ever heard the girls tell anyone that Joey is their stepmom. But I have heard them tell people numerous times that she is their mother."
His wife and daughters then had an emotional conversation, all the while holding hands.
"[Joey] told them how much she loved them, and how proud she is of them," he wrote. "And how proud she is to be their mother. And then she talked with them about the one thing that she didn’t think she would ever have to talk with them about: Leaving them. And then she told them of the day when they'll be together again in Heaven."
All three shared "tears of joy" when Joey Feek's mother and little sister joined everyone along with the Feeks' daughter Indiana.
"From the porch we all smiled because we knew in that instant, that no matter what happens, Joey will always be with us," Rory wrote. "She'll be in our little Indiana's smile . . . and in our hearts forever."
Joey and Rory Feek married in 2002, and Joey gave birth to their daughter Indiana in February 2014. Their band, Joey + Rory, formed in 2008 after taking third place on CMT's "Can You Duet."
Joey + Rory's album, "Life of a Song," entered the country music Top 40 charts and won an Academy of Country Music Award in 2010, and the group was
nominated for two others as well, according to CMT.com.
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