Country singer-songwriter Rory Feek and his daughter, 6-year-old Indiana Feek, are doing well four years after their beloved wife and mother Joey Feek passed away after battling cervical cancer.
Rory recently spoke with People about life with his little girl, who has down syndrome, in the years following her mother’s passing. “I think she can be whatever she wants to be, and Joey and I did not know,” Rory said about raising a child with special needs. “She just needs love, just like everybody else.”
Rory and Indiana begin their day with a walk to the Hardison Mill Schoolhouse, which was built on their family farm in Kansas using the funds raised after Joey’s death. Indiana attends the school, along with classmates from the community.
Rory Feek Talks About Daughter 4 Years After Joey Feek’s Passing
“We needed to come up with another plan since Joey wasn’t going to be able to homeschool Indy,” Rory said, calling the school “an amazing opportunity” for his daughter. “We’ve settled into a really wonderful life. Both of my sisters live on the farm with us,” Rory said of their routine. “Most little girls have a mother. Indiana has a lot of mothers.”
Rory has experience being a single dad after raising his older children, 31-year-old Hope and 33-year-old Heidi before he married Joey in 2002. “My experience raising Indiana is no different than raising Heidi and Hopie,” he told People. “Really, it’s the same. And the thing is, she doesn’t suspect that there’s anything different about her. She has no thought in the world.”
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“Indiana’s smile lights up not just the room, but the world,” Rory said proudly of his daughter. Rory and Joey’s journey can be seen on the new docuseries, This Life I Live, airing Sundays on RFD-TV.
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