“She’s asking me, ‘Are you still going to love me?’ and my first reaction was, ‘I don’t think so.’”
Rory Feek has faced challenges in his life.
The 53-year-old country singer lost his beloved wife and musical partner, Joey Feek, two years ago to cancer, and in a moving interview for CBS Sunday Morning, he opened up about returning to the stage after her death, calling it “surreal and strange, a little wrong in some ways.”
“It’s been two and a half years since Joey passed away,” he said. “I feel just as married and just as in love and I feel she’s just as much a part of our life as she was.”
Rory is also now a single dad to him and Joey's daughter, Indiana, and has two older daughters, Heidi and Hopie, from a previous relationship. Just days after Joey passed away, Rory said he could tell something was going on with Hopie.
“I said, ‘Just tell me, Hopie.’ And she went on to tell me that her friend Wendy is more than her friend and that she was in love,” Rory recalled of when his daughter came out to him that she was dating a woman.
Hopie was also interviewed by CBS Sunday Morning and recalled that she was afraid her father was going to judge her and noted that “yes” he did judge her in that moment. He seemingly agreed, sharing his candid reaction to the news.
“She’s asking me, ‘Are you still going to love me?’ and my first reaction was, ‘I don’t think so,’” he explained. “Because my conservative Christian faith that has saved me, that has made it possible to have any joy and peace and love in my life, the first reaction is that that challenges that immensely.”
Hopie added, “He didn’t know how to accept who I was at that moment, and I think that is very understandable.”
But Rory noted that he has come around to the idea and to what it means to be a parent and to love unconditionally.
“My job is to love her, even when it’s hard or even when I don’t agree or even if I don’t understand,” he said. “I still love her. I can still love her completely.”
Saying “yes,” he accepts Hopie and his other daughter, Heidi, who has declared herself an atheist, Rory went on to add, “I’d like to love Hopie and Heidi unconditionally, which means, if they don’t ever change, I don’t love them less.”
For more from the Feek family, watch the clip below:
RELATED CONTENT:
