For Valentine's Day on Sunday, country singer Rory Lee Feek said he really wants to share a romantic candle-lit dinner with his bride, Joey Martin Feek, who was diagnosed with stage-four cervical cancer in 2014. Instead, what the couple is truly looking forward to this year is just to hold hands and take "a virtual walk down memory lane together," Feek wrote on his blog Friday.
This country duo's love blossomed quickly. He said their first date was on Valentine's Day in 2002. Two months later, they were engaged, and two months after that, they were married.
Rory said for their 14th Valentine's together, he would like "grill rib-eyes on the campfire back home, pour two glasses of red wine and sit across from her [Joey] at our kitchen table, just like we've done on more than one special occasion. But those things aren't able to happen this year."
"Neither Joey, nor I, have laid eyes on our farmhouse back in Tennessee since the middle of October. On top of that, Joey's illness hasn't allowed her to be able to eat much of anything for some time now and she sleeps most of the days and nights away," Rory explained Friday.
"So my hope this year, instead, is to hold her hand and take her on a 'virtual' walk down memory lane together, with pictures and videos on my laptop. I want to take her back to where our lives first began together, and relive this beautiful journey that God has taken us on"
Rory said he plans to revisit the first song Joey heard him sing at the Bluebird Cafe, as well as the last one they sang together as they stood on stage and took their final bow. He said they will talk about the songs she will leave behind here on earth, and the ones she will soon sing for eternity to "our sweet Lord in that heavenly choir up yonder."
A trip down memory lane together is all Rory is hoping for, and "a few soft kisses."
He said their passion for each other has been replaced by the sweetest, gentlest kisses. He said he lives for those kisses. "They are enough."
Additionally, the Feeks new album "Hymns That Are Important To Us" was released nationwide Friday through Cracker Barrel. Rory previously said the album is filled with songs Joey grew up singing in church and her mother sang to her all through her childhood.
"It's the last album we will ever make (as husband-wife country duo Joey + Rory) and the last songs that we will ever sing together. That makes it very, very special to Joey and me."
Joey and Rory created the album while Joey, 40, struggled for energy and strength. Rory said this week they looked at the new CD together and talked about how beautiful it is and how if the taping had been a week later, it wouldn't have happened. It couldn't have.
They talked "about how God must've known. How He always knows. His timing is perfect."
Rory said he loved watching Joey looking, reading and holding one last dream of hers in her hands.
He cited Cracker Barrel's special version of the new record called a ZinePak, which he called "the neatest little page booklet," filled with nearly 50 pages of stories from their lives. "Our life story. Our love story. Part of it anyway," he wrote.
Sharing the link to the one-hour Hymns-related TV special, Rory called his wife "so beautiful on the stage, in the spotlight. So full of life and love." He said he started to watch the special, but decided to wait until his Valentine's Day date with Joey when they can watch it together.
"Yes, I have a plan. But mine always gives way to His. Master plan," concluded 50-year-old Rory.
The couple also is looking forward to Monday when they can watch the Grammy program together, and see what occurs with their nomination for best country duo/group performance.
