Speaker 1: With me on the phone. Is Rory Fike. You probably
Speaker 1: remember he and his late wife, Joey, had a television show.
Speaker 1: He's a songwriter. She was a singer. Uh. Just a wonderful, wonderful,
Speaker 1: wonderful human being. A daddy. He's got two grown daughters
Speaker 1: and now little Indie Indiana. He's also an author. He's
Speaker 1: written a couple of books. We're gonna be talking about that.
Speaker 1: He's got a children's book out to the cow said nay,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna be talking about the book that I
Speaker 1: just finished, called now Once upon a Farm. Rory Fike,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming back and talking to
Speaker 1: us tonight. Are you at home? Are you calling me
Speaker 1: from your farm? I'm calling you from my farm where
Speaker 1: I'm folding laundry as we speak. Lots of little girl clothes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have quite a few little girl clothes and some
Speaker 1: some big boy overalls. Yeah. Your laundry has got to
Speaker 1: be pretty simple. You put the shirts in one load
Speaker 1: and then you're overalls. How many pairs do you own?
Speaker 1: I have a bunch. I'm kind of embarrassed to say,
Speaker 1: give me a ballpark, just a gas because and then
Speaker 1: I'm going to confess about my boots. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: I probably have. I mean I probably have tin pairs.
Speaker 1: So that's not that's not a lot I've had. That's
Speaker 1: not a bunch. Well, it's a bunch when you know,
Speaker 1: you really don't need that many, but it's a bunch
Speaker 1: for a man with overalls. You do need that many
Speaker 1: because you need the darker blue ones for like church service. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you need the ones with the holes and the knees
Speaker 1: for tinkering unto the car. I mean, come on, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do. I've got the I've got some black um
Speaker 1: shovrals for formal occasions, shov als for farmal occasions, for
Speaker 1: farmal occasions exactly. Now do you wear boots for the
Speaker 1: farmal occasions? Do you have like black boots to go
Speaker 1: with the blacks? Yeah? Uh, I mean I might, I
Speaker 1: might look ridiculous, but I do it well. But you're
Speaker 1: comfortable for me. It was a number of years ago.
Speaker 1: It just became one less thing. You know, you just
Speaker 1: what should I wear overalls? Okay, I don't think about
Speaker 1: that anymore. How are you doing? I'm hanging in you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Have you heard the I'm sure you have um Willie
Speaker 1: Nelson song. It's not something you get over. No, I
Speaker 1: haven't heard it, oh Rory, I must have listened to
Speaker 1: this song a thousand times after Zach left. It says,
Speaker 1: it's not something you get over, it's just something you
Speaker 1: get through. Wow, that's a pretty powerful statement. It's kind
Speaker 1: of become my mantra. You know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's uh.
Speaker 1: I don't ever say because nobody ever knows what to say,
Speaker 1: Like they don't never know what to say. So you
Speaker 1: know when they say when they do talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: moving on, like I just that doesn't feel like a
Speaker 1: real thing to me. I mean, you just keep moving forward.
Speaker 1: But I don't think you move on. That's why that
Speaker 1: song just Who was such a gift, because you don't
Speaker 1: move on, You just you just get through it. Hopefully
Speaker 1: you're like me, where in spite of it, you'd still
Speaker 1: look around and see all the blessings, and that makes
Speaker 1: a big difference. I just feel blessed all the time.
Speaker 1: I would just now came over here because I was
Speaker 1: five minutes ago. I was at the schoolhouse that opened
Speaker 1: yesterday in Indiana, and a dozen other kids are all
Speaker 1: having lunch around a big farm table and having the
Speaker 1: greatest time in the world and all these little kids
Speaker 1: I'm just now getting to know, and that's just happened
Speaker 1: at our farm just now. And I don't know what
Speaker 1: the future is, but it's amazing. So the blessings continue
Speaker 1: in spite of, you know, the the hurts, and what
Speaker 1: a blessed, blessed, blessed life you have. I know, I
Speaker 1: know the pain is excruciating, but um, I just finished
Speaker 1: Once upon a Farm I've been since back left. I
Speaker 1: can't concentrate, so I read like two pages at a time.
Speaker 1: But there there are so many beautiful little stories that
Speaker 1: you've shared in here, and so many miracles and blessings
Speaker 1: that have happened. And one of my favorite chapters is
Speaker 1: when you talk about your worst nightmare, how you were
Speaker 1: afraid that your actions, that you have this recurring nightmare,
Speaker 1: that your foolishness would cause you to lose your wife.
Speaker 1: You know, though God called her home, it wasn't because
Speaker 1: you reverted to your old ways or foolishness. And I
Speaker 1: don't know why that touched me so deeply, but I
Speaker 1: think that's one of my favorite stories you shared. Well,
Speaker 1: it happened because I was in the airport, Zach Joey
Speaker 1: was here you know, we it was during times when
Speaker 1: she was going through surgery and recovering through your chemo
Speaker 1: and radiation, or at least we we hoped she was recovering,
Speaker 1: and UM and I had to travel somewhere without her,
Speaker 1: and we never went anywhere without each other. We just didn't.
Speaker 1: We didn't. Every single time at the park and fly place,
Speaker 1: they knew who we were, and they knew we were
Speaker 1: always together. And if we walked up to the counter
Speaker 1: at Southwest or Delta, they knew we were. So it uh,
Speaker 1: it felt weird for me to walk through there, and
Speaker 1: it hurt me because people were asking me where Joey was.
Speaker 1: But what happened was I realized that that could happen,
Speaker 1: that could have happened to where people are doing the
Speaker 1: same thing. And this is even before Joey passed away.
Speaker 1: But I found some sort of peace and the fact
Speaker 1: that UM, a lot of times we as men or
Speaker 1: just we in our lives, we will mess up the
Speaker 1: greatest thing that we've ever had, whatever that happens to be,
Speaker 1: and we'll mess it up just by doing something stupid
Speaker 1: or neglecting it. And I could have been walking through
Speaker 1: their under that that airport under completely different circumstances to
Speaker 1: where everyone asking me it would have been could have
Speaker 1: been something that I did or I didn't do, And
Speaker 1: for some reason, I felt blessed to be able to
Speaker 1: just know that I'm still in the beautiful love story,
Speaker 1: even though it's hard, and even though I'm walking through
Speaker 1: by myself at this moment. It just changed things for me.
Speaker 1: I think in that chapter I said I had this.
Speaker 1: I've always had this recurring nightmare that something would happen
Speaker 1: and I would lose my wife Joey. Even though it happened,
Speaker 1: it just didn't happen the way that I was afraid
Speaker 1: of it. And the thing is, I'm just blessed even
Speaker 1: to be here today and feel like I'm still just
Speaker 1: as in love and just as committed as I was before. Amen.
Speaker 1: Amen and your Cowboy Church. How's that going? I want
Speaker 1: to come some day. It's going great. Last hen was
Speaker 1: the first, so they've been here in our barn for
Speaker 1: a year and a half. They started, I think in
Speaker 1: February of two thousand and seventeen, and so last weekend
Speaker 1: they moved from our barn to a new um, a
Speaker 1: new place. They moved to an elementary school and they're
Speaker 1: trying to build their own barn. So that had to
Speaker 1: happen because our our one room schoolhouse just opened and
Speaker 1: they need a place for their kids to be and
Speaker 1: they've kind of outgrown our barn. So I think this
Speaker 1: is going to probably lead them to bigger and better things.
Speaker 1: I have to believe in reading that your chapters in
Speaker 1: your book Once upon a Farm, that that was such
Speaker 1: a gift from God to put that worship service there,
Speaker 1: those people there at such a time, so that you
Speaker 1: didn't have to put any effort. You just walk across
Speaker 1: the field, across the driveway and your minister too. What
Speaker 1: a gift. Yeah, it really has been, and I it
Speaker 1: actually brought even you know, brought community here. We were
Speaker 1: part of a wonderful community, but that's a different community
Speaker 1: and lots of folks coming in from other places that
Speaker 1: I I would not have met if they didn't come
Speaker 1: in there. So yeah, it has been really wonderful. It's
Speaker 1: kind of been hard to say goodbye to it being
Speaker 1: here in the barn, but at the same time, it's only,
Speaker 1: you know, six miles down the road, so we'll still
Speaker 1: be there on Sundays. I thought about that, and I thought,
Speaker 1: how good is God to say, I see what you need.
Speaker 1: You need people, You need community, and he needs to
Speaker 1: have multitudes of people to love on because she's so social.
Speaker 1: And I know you don't have it in you to
Speaker 1: go find this community. So how about I just bring
Speaker 1: it to your front yard, so there's no you don't
Speaker 1: have to you don't have to think about it, you
Speaker 1: don't have to put yourself out there. Just walk across
Speaker 1: the driveway and be blessed. Yeah, it's been amazing. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that happened right away was since
Speaker 1: our concert hall had been empty for a year and
Speaker 1: a half almost years, we um we just thought we
Speaker 1: would be wonderful to have some life in there and
Speaker 1: some some music and some some preaching and all of
Speaker 1: it some people in love and laughter. So we opened
Speaker 1: it up and they started having Cowboy Church there, and
Speaker 1: I bet it was about the second or third weekend
Speaker 1: there was a girl on stage singing one of our
Speaker 1: songs that my wife used to sing, called Heart of
Speaker 1: the Woods. And at first I kind of wasn't sure
Speaker 1: what I thought. I was setting in the audience, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden she starts to sing my wife's song,
Speaker 1: and then I just kept listening, and of course it
Speaker 1: really I got really emotional listening to it, but it
Speaker 1: also reminded me what an amazing song it was and
Speaker 1: how the song needs to continue to be heard. And
Speaker 1: I realized as I heard her sing it, it made
Speaker 1: me realize that, hey, I could sing some of these songs,
Speaker 1: even even if I just changed them from Joey's respective
Speaker 1: to mine, maybe that would be okay. That was the
Speaker 1: first thing that sort of planted a seed that maybe
Speaker 1: I should get back on stage at some point, and
Speaker 1: so it took a little time from there, but that
Speaker 1: was another gift from Cowboy Church, was just hearing people
Speaker 1: sing our songs and reminding me how special they were
Speaker 1: and that they were still here if I wanted to
Speaker 1: sing them. Wow, you have faced so much and you
Speaker 1: do it with a whole lot of class. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of power and being honest. And when I read
Speaker 1: Once upon a Farm and you were really honest, you
Speaker 1: put it out there, Rory, you just you just I
Speaker 1: was like, WHOA. But now you're just like really honest
Speaker 1: about what your family is going through and who they are,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, Wow, You're my hero for being able
Speaker 1: to be that transparent and that loving and that um classy.
Speaker 1: Well it's already happening anyway. You know, I could try
Speaker 1: and not share it. But all of these are real
Speaker 1: life things, you know, that are things in the past,
Speaker 1: are are things that have gotten me to where I am,
Speaker 1: even even the terrible mistakes that I've made there, they're
Speaker 1: a very big important part of the story. And also,
Speaker 1: like those scary things, you know, at the time when
Speaker 1: I was going through them or when I was making
Speaker 1: those decisions, you know, I never had anyone to even
Speaker 1: talk to or read something that I could relate to.
Speaker 1: And for some reason, it feels like all the power
Speaker 1: is really in being honest, and that's the real power
Speaker 1: to be able to be encouraging to other folks, because
Speaker 1: you know they they're maybe making some struggle or having
Speaker 1: some struggles, and maybe you make them feel like, well,
Speaker 1: there's isn't so bad after all, or um or maybe
Speaker 1: whatever I am I'm involved in right now, it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that this is the person I'm going to be
Speaker 1: down the road. Maybe I can be a better person,
Speaker 1: maybe I could live a better life. Maybe just because
Speaker 1: I'm I'm empty inside and I feel corrupt or um,
Speaker 1: I have no self esteem. Maybe just maybe I could
Speaker 1: have joy in my life and peace in my life.
Speaker 1: So but it feels like the only way to be
Speaker 1: of any service is to be able to be honest
Speaker 1: and and share. And then that's also not only for
Speaker 1: the past, but also in the present. Is we're living
Speaker 1: this life, why not continue to share it? Honestly, I'm
Speaker 1: not a great rememberer. And so if I have to
Speaker 1: um coal and try and figure out which parts of
Speaker 1: my life I've shared or I haven't shared, or I
Speaker 1: feel like I could tell someone or I shouldn't tell people,
Speaker 1: I would I think it would cause me some anxiety
Speaker 1: or something. But instead I kind of feel it doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter who it is. I would tell them anything
Speaker 1: anything about myself, you know, about what I've gone through
Speaker 1: or what we're going through, because I feel like it
Speaker 1: I don't have to remember anything. I just can be
Speaker 1: honest all the time. So, and the other thing is
Speaker 1: is for some reason, um it actually helps for the
Speaker 1: most part, it helps everyone around me, even my children.
Speaker 1: Um In some of the struggles you know that we
Speaker 1: have are with my older girls and the differences of
Speaker 1: life styles and opinions and faith. But you know the
Speaker 1: truth is. I may not always agree with them, but
Speaker 1: I can still respect them and honor them, and that's
Speaker 1: all they really ask for. My grandma used to always say,
Speaker 1: tell the truth, and you don't have to try to
Speaker 1: remember your life. You're being that transparent has permissioned me
Speaker 1: to be a lot more authentic. And I think Marie,
Speaker 1: your voice today is doing the same thing, encouraging all
Speaker 1: of us to be more authentic, more transparent, more vulnerable. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you're very real about the fact that you're
Speaker 1: learning to be a parent, a better parent, a good parent,
Speaker 1: and the mistakes that you might have made, and you
Speaker 1: know all of us. I think all of us who
Speaker 1: are parents feel the same way. I've been parenting for
Speaker 1: a long, long, long time. My oldest biological child has
Speaker 1: five children of his own now. But I look at
Speaker 1: baby Paul and I think, did I do this right?
Speaker 1: The other fourteen times? Thirteen times? I don't know? And
Speaker 1: I think your book permissions all of us to just
Speaker 1: be more real. So thank you, well, thank you. I
Speaker 1: appreciate that. Have you reatten the book yet? Do I
Speaker 1: need to get your book? It's called One Heart at
Speaker 1: a Time, and uh, it's about how I believe that
Speaker 1: we're not going to change the world through politicians, through laws,
Speaker 1: through rants on Facebook, or a religious overtones. I believe
Speaker 1: that we will change the world one heart at a
Speaker 1: time by entering into real relationships with the people that
Speaker 1: God places in our life, and that if we will
Speaker 1: invest our time and energy into real relationships, we can
Speaker 1: solve the homeless problem. We can solve the drug epidemic.
Speaker 1: We can we can change the world for good. But
Speaker 1: we're not going to do it through policies or politics,
Speaker 1: or waiting for somebody else to fix the foster care system,
Speaker 1: or waiting for somebody else to ah, you know, reach
Speaker 1: out to somebody who's disabled. We have to do it ourselves,
Speaker 1: one heart at a time. That's wonderful. I love the
Speaker 1: time too. You'll have to send the make copy. I
Speaker 1: will send you a copy that the book was finished
Speaker 1: right before Zack decided to leave, so I had to,
Speaker 1: you know, rewriting some of it. It was really hard.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. I can't even imagine. I hope you never
Speaker 1: ever have to. Yeah, I can't. I talk about this sometimes. Um,
Speaker 1: there are people who, you know, there's no way to
Speaker 1: gauge one person's hurt you above greater or smaller. But
Speaker 1: I just know that the so a child just feels
Speaker 1: like it would be a whole different thing. Joey's father
Speaker 1: was here actually this weekend. He came in because we
Speaker 1: had we had a harvest dinner at our farm with
Speaker 1: a bunch of people on Joey's birthday, so the day
Speaker 1: before yesterday, and he came in this weekend and spent
Speaker 1: time with us. And you know, she would have been
Speaker 1: forty three, and yeah, you just sort of walked around.
Speaker 1: He's always a sweet, sweet man, but it was there's
Speaker 1: a lot of weight there because even though she would
Speaker 1: have been forty three, that's his little girl. I I
Speaker 1: don't even hardly know how to process his pain and
Speaker 1: what he feels. No, I just think it's it's got
Speaker 1: to be greater than mine. I don't know if, like
Speaker 1: you said, you can measure, there's no greater than less
Speaker 1: than But you certainly never envisioned that you'll outlive your kids.
Speaker 1: How do you see God in that equation at all? Well,
Speaker 1: if it weren't for the fact that the word says
Speaker 1: that all of his days were numbered before a single
Speaker 1: one came to pass, I would go crazy. I would
Speaker 1: go crazy but I cling to that. I go, Okay, God,
Speaker 1: you knew when you were going to call him home
Speaker 1: before you gave him to me, and he was only
Speaker 1: on loan and I'll see him again. And the other
Speaker 1: thing is he was, you know, like your wife. He
Speaker 1: had such a big personality that he took up so
Speaker 1: much room in our family. You know. I just he
Speaker 1: loved life for you? Is it? Is it just I
Speaker 1: feel like this is this is an everyday ache that's
Speaker 1: too too great like your yours. You just feel like
Speaker 1: it's still just as fresh as it was. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm ways for you. Yeah. But like I said, God
Speaker 1: brought maybe Paul to us two months before Zach left.
Speaker 1: And I don't have the luxury of having a mental
Speaker 1: breakdown like I would like to. I really would like
Speaker 1: to just stay in bed and pull the covers up
Speaker 1: over my head and and stay there. But I got
Speaker 1: a baby, I got a nine year old, I got
Speaker 1: a fourteen year old. I've got rally practice to get
Speaker 1: him to and dental appointments. And my fourteen year old
Speaker 1: is the vice president of her class this year, so
Speaker 1: she's got all these activities and things she has to
Speaker 1: organize and events, and you know, God's like, Nope, you
Speaker 1: don't get to you don't get to do sheet therapy. Delighted.
Speaker 1: You gotta you gotta keep moving, You gotta keep going.
Speaker 1: And you know, like like your baby was for you,
Speaker 1: you you can't stay in bed when there's a baby
Speaker 1: that needs a dip or changed. My feeling of gratitude
Speaker 1: is so big. I know you can read it in
Speaker 1: the book and stuff, But the truth is I have
Speaker 1: some sort of thing inside of me, like a rewiring
Speaker 1: that doesn't let me feel. I can only see the
Speaker 1: good and um, and so I find myself just just
Speaker 1: remembering and thinking of the good and asking no questions.
Speaker 1: I just want to be an encouragement to you, because
Speaker 1: you have a lot on your plate. For me, there's
Speaker 1: just gotta be some way that in some bigger picture scheme,
Speaker 1: this is, This is the story it's supposed to be,
Speaker 1: And who knows how or why. I can't help but
Speaker 1: believe that that there has to be good, even though
Speaker 1: there is it's hard to see. You said something uh
Speaker 1: in your book, and you said it in this conversation
Speaker 1: about how blessed you were to have shared a love
Speaker 1: like you shared with your wife, and as hard as
Speaker 1: it is. I love to be a news book like
Speaker 1: your music. You know, when music is playing and it's throbbing,
Speaker 1: and and then it's silent. When music fills up a
Speaker 1: room or fills up a stadium, or fills up your headphones,
Speaker 1: and then it's silent, it's such a huge void. And
Speaker 1: he was, he was a big song. Mm hmm. I
Speaker 1: think that's the that's where the power is is if
Speaker 1: you could really, you could really really really hang on
Speaker 1: to that. And I think that's what maybe, well, that's
Speaker 1: really probably why in my first book, I had to
Speaker 1: be able to tell and share what a mess of
Speaker 1: my life that I had made for so many years.
Speaker 1: Did a really good job of it, of telling the
Speaker 1: story and of making a mess, Yeah, for sure. But
Speaker 1: the thing is is that if I don't tell that,
Speaker 1: if I don't remind myself even of that, I could
Speaker 1: feel like I'm robbed. You know, other people could they
Speaker 1: get to be married thirty years or whatever it happens
Speaker 1: to me, they get they get a lifetime of love together.
Speaker 1: But if I'm true, if I tell the truth, I
Speaker 1: I don't think I deserved what I got. So it
Speaker 1: really isn't fair for me to say even though I
Speaker 1: got fourteen years with Joey, with someone who so special
Speaker 1: and a light like I've never seen before and I've
Speaker 1: probably never seen again, it doesn't seem right for me
Speaker 1: to be upset that I didn't get more. So I
Speaker 1: only bask in the in the amount I got, and
Speaker 1: I carry it with me. Even though a big voice
Speaker 1: has been silenced, I don't really see it that way.
Speaker 1: You know, her My voice is her voice. She's inside
Speaker 1: of me. She's helping me make choices, she's helping me
Speaker 1: when I'm seeing on stage. It's because of her that
Speaker 1: I get to be here or that where you and
Speaker 1: I are even talking because of her. It really is
Speaker 1: because of her. And so she still lives, you know,
Speaker 1: in a million gazillion ways, and there's there's something about
Speaker 1: that that makes a big difference to me. And just
Speaker 1: just being able to concentrate on the fact that I
Speaker 1: am so fortunate to have had any of it. So
Speaker 1: I just want to bask in that and tell everybody
Speaker 1: it's possible to have it, even if it's for a
Speaker 1: short time. I just feel so grateful. And then even
Speaker 1: with a little one, it isn't that, it isn't that
Speaker 1: I don't have time to have a mental breakdown. I
Speaker 1: don't have a reason to have a mental breakdown. I have.
Speaker 1: I have the most amazing gift in front of me,
Speaker 1: all of it. It's so amazing, like I get to
Speaker 1: have purpose, even if it's just that one, and I
Speaker 1: got lots of them, as you do. I don't know
Speaker 1: how to look at it. It's just like it's all
Speaker 1: the good just stares me in the face all the time,
Speaker 1: and I can't see anything else. Doesn't mean that, especially
Speaker 1: with songs and scenes from a movie, or something will happen,
Speaker 1: or I'll read something and it'll just I'll just take
Speaker 1: my breath away and it'll just come right back up again.
Speaker 1: I'll think about Joey, and I'll think about how I
Speaker 1: wish that she were here with me, or how I
Speaker 1: wish she were here and I wasn't if someone had
Speaker 1: to go, or I wish she could be here with
Speaker 1: me at these beautiful moments with Indiana or these challenging moments.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't that doesn't last long. That just reminds
Speaker 1: me that I loved her deeply and that she's still
Speaker 1: here and I still feel it. But it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to take my day and you know, make me just
Speaker 1: live in the past or anything else. It helps me
Speaker 1: to move forward for some reason. So, like I said,
Speaker 1: everybody is a little different. I just want to encourage
Speaker 1: you in any way that I could. Thank you. So
Speaker 1: your book Once Upon a Farm, Rory Feek. Where can
Speaker 1: people find it? Well, they can't find it in Christian bookstores,
Speaker 1: mostly because they didn't put it in there because it
Speaker 1: has a chapter that they don't like. And I understand that. Um,
Speaker 1: but you divided in Walmart and UM and lots of
Speaker 1: other places Target, I think, and Costco and Sam's Club
Speaker 1: and online. So yeah, I think it's kind of all around.
Speaker 1: Why do you get it at Cracker Barrel my favorite
Speaker 1: place to eat? Oh my gosh, do I love their
Speaker 1: biscuits and gravy. Yeah, they're wonderful. Rory, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for sharing your heart, for being so vulnerable, for
Speaker 1: living your faith, for understanding that you don't get past
Speaker 1: some things, but you still have to go forward. The
Speaker 1: children's book The Cow Said Nay, and the book for
Speaker 1: grown ups Once Upon this Farm really bless my heart.
Speaker 1: Just thank you, thank you, thank you, and thank you
Speaker 1: for being a part of conversations with Delilah thank you
Speaker 1: for your time today always wonderful to talk to you, Delila.