Feek - This life I live: one mans extraordinary, ordinary life and the woman who changed it forever

2017 Rory Feek

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Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by W Publishing Group, an imprint of Thomas Nelson.

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Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version. 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Nothing To Remember words and music by Joey Martin and Rory Feek. 2005 ole Black In The Saddle Songs, ole Giantslayer Music and Rufus Guild Music. All rights administered by ole. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC.

When Im Gone written by: Sandra Emory Lawrence. 2012 Ocotillo Red Music. All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 424 Church Street, Suite 1200, Nashville, TN 37219. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016917201

ISBN 978-0-7180-9019-7

Epub Edition January 2017 ISBN 9780718090128

Printed in the United States of America

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To Joey,

you forever changed my life

by letting me be part of yours.

I am famous.

Not for what most people think Im famous for, though, which is music. Yes, Ive written some songs that youve probably heard on the radio, and my wife and I have had a very successful career in the music business. And weve made half a dozen albums, toured the country and halfway around the world, and performed on television. We even had our own TV show for a couple of years. But thats not what Im really famous for. Not anymore anyway.

I am famous for loving my wife.

There is hardly a grocery aisle that I walk down or a gas station that I pull into where I dont find a hand reached out to shake mine, an iPhone pointed my way, or, even more often, arms reaching out to hug me and to tell me how much they love me. And my wife. And my baby daughter and family.

Do you know what a gift that is? To know that millions of people not only have followed our story online through my blog and videos but also have sung along to our songs, and theyve bowed their heads and prayed and shed their tears over my wife and me. Strangers have done this.

All of my life, Ive been anonymous. A nobody. Now Im not just somebody. Im somebodys. I am Joeys husband, Rory.

And I am honored. So very honored to have been her husband. To be her husband still. To have stood beside her at the altar and be standing beside her still when til-death-do-us-part became something much more than a phrase in our wedding vows. To have put a wedding ring on her left hand. Twice. Once, in front of our friends and families that day in June 2002, and again in late February 2016, when we were all alone and the cancer had made her fingers so thin and frail that she had been wearing it on a chain around her neck, and she asked me to wrap masking tape around the bottom of that platinum promise so it wouldnt fall off her finger in the wooden casket that would be the final resting place for the ring with BOUND BY GOD FOREVER engraved inside the band.

But to know why being famous for loving my wife means so much to me, you have to know something more of my story. More of the journey than just the last two and a half years, which I have had the chance to share in my blog. More lyrics of the song that is my life. More of the darkness that I lived through to understand the light that I found and have had the chance to become.

My life is very ordinary. On the surface, it is not very special. If you looked at it, day to day, it wouldnt seem like much. But when you look at it in a bigger contextas part of a larger storyyou start to see the magic that is on the pages of the book that is my life. And the more you look, the more you see. Or, at least, I do.

I dont cry like I used to or hurt like I did when I was a younger man. Im more stable. Stronger. Finally. When others dont or cant hold it together, somehow I do. Im not sure why or when that started. I wasnt always like that. Far, far from it. I was an emotional mess most of my life. Crying and falling apart for the smallest of things. Most of them, things of my doing. Or things that were just in my head. Im not like that anymore. At least not as far as I can tell.

We had a perfect at-home birth that, a few hours later, turned into a horrific surgery for my wife and a diagnosis of Down syndrome for our baby daughter. A few months later my siblings and I watched our mother pass away right before our eyes. And the year after that, I held my wifes hand as cancer took her, and I had to pick up our two-year-old daughter, Indiana, and somehow go on. But I have been strong. I have cried very few tears, especially in the moments where the pain lives or is learned. I have found myself crying in other moments. When Im by myselfthinking, remembering, wondering. But all in all, I have mostly felt peace. My wife was the same way. She was strong in her faith and trusted God when difficulties would come our way. Just as I do. I dont know why. Or where I learned that. Or became that. I know that she is a lot of why I am me. Joey. And God. God that was in Joey. I could see Him in her. In her eyes and her smile, even when it hurt to smile. In her tears and her laughter, He was there. Her love strengthened my faith. And brought hope. Always, always hope.

Its a wonderful difference compared to how I used to be, but its also unusual for me. Most of the people around me break down easily and often. Hope comes and goes like the wind. My sister Marcy almost didnt make it through my mothers passing. Her grief was so great. I couldnt relate to her. I tried to. I listened and was there for her and did my best to comfort her. But I didnt cry like she did or feel her pain. My view of our mom dying was compassionate but in a realistic way. People pass away. Its a part of life. Its hard and terrible, but its gonna happen to all of us. Mom smoked, right up until the end, so this happens a lot when that happens. Somehow I could keep in perspective that Mom was seventy-one, and thats a long life. Still, even with that, I wonder if I should be crying or hurting more. I dont feel like Im carrying a huge amount of weight or that Im bottling up my emotions or anything like that. I just feel like I now have a different perspective from what I had most of my life. I have peace. Because of my faith. And finally opening my hands and turning my life over to God. Believing in a higher power and trusting that He has a bigger plan. One that I dont understand. That I cant understand this side of heaven.