Joey Feek and her husband Rory have been very open on social media about her cancer battle and how the family decided to stop treatment last month, which means the country singer has weeks to months left in her life.
But in a recent interview with the Tennessean, Feek, who was diagnosed with cervical cancer last May, says she's "at peace" with the end of her life and spending her remaining days at her childhood home with friends and family.
Tennessean writer Cindy Watts has been covering Joey and Rory Feek for years and drove six hours to not only conduct the interview with Joey, 40, but to see her friend one last time. Feek has started wearing wigs, taking morphine for the pain and Watts described the singer as "frail," but mentally still holding onto her faith.
Read: Country Singer Rory Feek Pens Heartbreaking 'Answer to Prayer' as Wife Battles Cancer"I really thought we had it. I thought, ‘I’m going to be that exception. I’m going to be that statistic that stands out and says, ‘She fought it.' We did the most extreme surgery we can do in the gynecologic world, and she did well.’ But for whatever reason, it wasn’t enough, and God had different plans. I was disappointed. I was exhausted," Joey told the paper.
Feek adds, "But God decided for me that my job of singing for people down here is my legacy, and he needs me singing up there. That’s how I look at it.”
Feek, mother of 1-year-old daughter Indiana, is now spending her final days in the same room in Alexandria, Indiana, where she says, "I was born, it’s where I was raised, and this is where I die." Her sister Jody, a nurse, is at the family home, helping out.
"I pray that one morning I just don’t wake up. But I don’t fear anything because I’m so close to God and we’ve talked about it so many times," Joey says. "I know he’s close. And I know he loves me. I’m really at peace. I still believe there’s healing in prayer.”
In addition to the candid interview, Joey and Rory posted a picture on Sunday to their Facebook page with the caption, "our girls drove up here last night to spend more time with their mom and baby sister." The picture features baby Indiana and Heidi and Hopie, Rory's children from a previous relationship.
Rory has also been documenting the tough ordeal from the perspective of a caring, supportive husband on his blog "This Life I Live: Scenes from One Man's Extraordinary, Ordinary Life."
“Joey is at peace with where she is and where she’s going. So am I. An answer to prayer," he wrote a week ago, when the couple decided to bring Joey home from hospice and "concentrate now on helping her be comfortable" in her final days.
Rory said the choice to bring Joey home has "been beautiful," especially for their baby girl Indiana.
"Yesterday I sat her down in front of her mama and they smiled and played and loved each other the way that only mamas and their little ones can," he wrote last week.