Rory Feek Thanks Friends for Support During Joey's Cancer Battle: 'We Are Here Because God Wants Us Here'
Joey and Rory Feek may be going through one of the hardest periods of their lives, but they're not doing it alone.
Joey was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in 2014 and entered hospice care at the end of last year. Now, Rory is opening up about the friends who have supported them through this tough time. "Some things are meant to be. They're bigger than us. Bigger than coincidence. And the only way you can explain them is God," he says in a new blog entry, titled "The Ties That Bind."
Rory writes about his cousin and the couple's manager, Aaron Carnahan, and the many ways the two men's lives have paralleled each other. They both had two daughters during their first marriages, and later a child with Down syndrome. They both became Christians around the same time. Both of their second wives have "J" names and their wives' four siblings do too.
Aaron's wife, Jill, made a full recovery from her battle with cancer years ago and is now "one of the country's leading functional medicine doctors."
"When I called Aaron in May of 2014 and told him that the doctors suspected that Joey had a tumor on her cervix, he couldn't take any more," Rory writes. "I remember him crying on the phone and saying… 'you can't have this. This is where it has to stop...'"
Rory continues, "We are here because God wants us here. Aaron knows that. We all do. I think he's cried more tears over what is happening right now than all of us put together. If you've ever met Aaron, the one thing you learn right away, is that he doesn't hold back his emotions."
EXCLUSIVE: Rory Feek Has 'No Desire to Go on Singing or Performing' Without Joey
Not only is Aaron Joey + Rory’s manager, but he may just be the reason they ever started making music together in the first place.
"A couple years after Joey and I were married but still long before Joey and I ever even thought of singing together, Aaron called me one night from a movie theater in Peoria. He said that he had just seen the Joaquin Phoenix/Reese Witherspoon film Walk The Line... and that sitting in the theater he had a vision that Joey and I were going to sing together one day and be a very successful singing duo, just like Johnny and June," Rory recalled. "I didn't believe him."
Now, many years later, the couple has earned their first GRAMMY nomination, a bittersweet surprise amid the 40-year-old's illness. On Thursday, fellow nominee Blake Shelton said that he was rooting for the duo to win over him. He previously told ET, "The courage that they as a family have displayed -- it's inspirational. It's sad, but it's special at the same time."
Now, find out what else Rory exclusively told ET about their GRAMMY nomination.