Rory Feek Shares Excerpt From His Book ‘This Life I Live’
Rory and Joey Feek of the country music duo Joey + Rory had a love story like none other. Their love was timeless and something that most couples hope to, but never actually achieve. It’s been seven months since Joey lost her battle with terminal cancer, and Rory is determined to keep her memory alive.
In a new blog post on his blog This Life I Live, Rory shared an excerpt from his book by the same name, This Life I Live: One Man’s Extraordinary, Ordinary Life and the Woman Who Changed It Forever. The excerpt is from chapter 32 of the book and recalls the night he and Joey talked about possibly getting engaged, and the type of engagement ring she would want if Rory was to ask her.
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The conversation between Joey and Rory Feek took place in 2002 as they were sitting next to each other on the bed.
Rory asked her what kind of engagement ring she would want someday, to which Joey replied, “Something old, I think. Maybe something antique that has some personality and history to it.”
Rory was shocked, as Joey had described a ring identical to the one he had placed in the back of his sock drawer. The ring wasn’t new, and it wasn’t intended for Joey. In fact, he had given it to another woman several times, but it never worked out.
“From the back of my sock drawer, I pulled out a little leather box and nervously carried it over and sat beside her on the bed. ‘You mean, like this one?’ I opened the box, and inside was exactly what she had described. An antique engagement ring from the 1920s made of platinum, with little blue sapphires on the sides and an oval-shaped diamond sparkling on the top. Joey’s eyes lit up.
‘It’s not what you think,’ I said. ‘I bought it for another girl a couple of years ago. I gave it to her. A few times… I was trying to make something terrible work. It ended up being thrown across the floor of an Alan Jackson concert. And I just never figured out what to do with it. I need to take it somewhere and sell it.'”
Joey wasn’t angry that her future fiance, husband, and father of her children had given another woman a ring. She actually tried the ring on, and to both of their surprise, it fit perfectly, like it was made just for her.
“Joey slowly slid it on her finger… and it fit. Perfectly. ‘Don’t get rid of it,’ she said. ‘I’ll wear it if you ever decide that you want to ask me.’
What? I thought. What is she talking about? She should be mad at me right now. Upset that I still even have such a thing or that I would show it to her. Instead, Joey treated me as though I had done something good by buying that ring and hanging on to it… as if I had just given it to the wrong person. She made me feel like all the ring needed was time… to find the right left hand.
God, I loved her.”
Rory proposed to Joey with the ring two months later. She wore it every day, up until the day she knew the end was near, and at that point, she slid it onto her step-daughter Hopie’s finger.
“When she comes over in the mornings from her apartment above the big barn and I see it on her finger… it makes me smile and remember that day in ’02 when I first showed the ring to Joey,” Rory wrote in his blog post. “And also remember that day last winter in a makeshift bedroom in Indiana… Joey slid it off her own finger and smiled as she slid it onto her daughter’s.”
As the Inquisitr previously reported, Joey Feek was diagnosed with stage four cervical cancer in May 2014, three months after giving birth to her daughter Indiana. Although she underwent several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, along with a radical hysterectomy, the cancer returned and continued to spread throughout her body. Because there was nothing left for her doctors to do, Joey entered hospice care in October 2015 and lived out her final days with her family in her hometown of Alexandria, Indiana. Joey put up a good fight, but sadly she succumbed to the cancer and passed away on March 4.
Following Joey’s death, Rory and Indiana moved back to their home in Tennessee, where they have been trying to move on with their lives while always remember the woman who forever changed their lives.
[Featured Image by Rory Feek/This Life I Live]
