Cancer Stricken Joey Feek's Health Has Taken a Down Turn & She is Dying

By Timothy Yap Jan 09, 2016 09:23 PM EST

Joey Feek, one half of country music duo Joey + Rory, is dying. Over the last few days, her pain has increased, her morphine dosage has increased, she's talking more to Jesus, and feeling death at the throes.

On Rory's (her husband's) blog, he writes: "Yesterday with tears in her eyes and mine, Joey held my hand and told me that she has been having serious talks with Jesus. She said she told him that if He's ready to take her... she's ready to come home."

Rory gives a grim update on his wife's health: "I don't say those words lightly. As a matter-of-fact, I haven't said them at all. But my beautiful bride has said them to me in these couple of days. Her pain and discomfort has continued to increase daily and so has the morphine to help her be comfortable. The dosage she's needed to keep the pain away has quadrupled in the last four days.

I'd like to tell you that she's doing great and is going to beat this thing. But I can't."

One of the songs that is bringing the couple comfort is a song, they have recorded years ago, entitled "When I'm Gone," a track they have included in their His and Hers album. The song will make another appearance again in the Cracker Barrel edition of their forthcoming release Hymns That Are Important to Us.

Rory explains how they came to record this song. "As we were looking for and choosing the 12 songs that would go on the new record, we both knew that we wanted one of them to be a Sandy Lawrence song. Sandy was a undiscovered songwriter who had moved to Nashville twenty-something years ago and knocked on a thousand un-opened doors on Music Row. In her late 50's now, working at a library and helping her husband Cowboy Jack take care of the horses at their small ranch south of Franklin- we had come to know and love the songs that Sandy wrote. Different than most songwriters in Nashville where co-writing runs rampant, Sandy writes hers alone. And they're brilliant.

And maybe by chance, by recording one of her songs... we could change Sandy's life and the world could discover what a gift she has. That's our favorite part of recording other people's songs.

Sitting in the studio with my laptop, I went through a few of the songs that we liked and then came across a new one that Sandy had sent me. It was her work-tape of "When I'm Gone". I played it for Joey.

She listened as her tears fell.

Ten minutes later, our producer Gary Paczosa, Joey and I were gathered around Gordon Mote and his piano - finding Joey's key to record the song in. Gordon is blind and though he can't see with his eyes... his gift of sight is much stronger than ours. It was as if he could see what this song would one day become and he laid his fingers on the keys and softly started playing the intro notes on the piano that you hear now.

We wept again."