Rory Feek shares his wife's life in 'To Joey, With Love'

Memories are tricky, especially when illness is involved.

It's why after losing Joey Feek to cancer, making a documentary helped restore Rory Feek's vision of his late wife.

“I mostly am still a little bit in awe of her being gone," says Rory, half of the country music duo Joey + Rory, who is finishing To Joey, With Love, which will make its debut Sept. 20 in select cities (including Dallas, Nashville, Chicago, Atlanta, Houston and Los Angeles) for one night, with an encore Oct. 6. "I just sort of feel her everywhere and it feels strange that she’s not here. I find myself just more thinking about the finality of it and how much I miss her.”

Joey Feek died March 4 at age 40 after a long battle with Stage 4 cervical cancer, an experience her husband chronicled on his blog, This Life I Live, which has attracted millions of readers.

Exclusive: Watch Rory Feek's new trailer for 'To Joey, With Love'

For more than two years, Rory, 51, had been filming the couple's embrace of a simpler existence on their Pottsville, Tenn., farm. He didn't know why he was capturing it all, but using his iPhone, an iPad and a Canon 70D, Rory documented life as it was dealt: Joey’s pregnancy. The arrival of their daughter Indiana, born with Down syndrome. Joey’s cancer diagnosis. Her surgery. Her treatment. Her death.

And after uploading the footage to his computer, Rory never watched it. When he finally did, something transformative happened.

“We had Joey’s funeral in early March,” he says. “And by late March or early April, I was going through the footage and at that point I couldn’t remember Joey healthy and happy. And strong. And alive. I could only remember her dying and courageous and all of that.”

But then there she was: digging energetically in her garden, feeding their chickens, laughing as their baby hammed it up. In real time, Rory replayed their last two years together, turning pages in their story as he went. “When I started going through this footage, almost immediately I saw her again,” he says. “And it swept away those (last) five months and it was gone.”

Though Rory mostly held the camera, his daughter Hopie, 27 (from a previous marriage), occasionally took over (sister Heidi is 29). It's how audiences are privy to Rory pacing in the hospital after Joey's home birth went awry. And how we watch the sweet, brief dance a frail Joey shared with her husband toward the end.

Joey Feek dies after long cancer battle

Six months after his wife’s death, Rory says Indiana, now 2½, is "doing great." Still, he adds, "I just want to make sure she’s always aware. I’m always talking about Joey and I’m always including her, whether it’s in our prayers, or we’re brushing our teeth and there’s a picture of her mama right there beside us."

Although Rory keeps looking for a flash of recognition, "I never see that,” he says, wondering if "maybe as she gets a little older, the memories will come more and she’ll be able to talk to me and communicate.”

On what would have been their 14th anniversary this June, Rory walked across their farm at dawn to where Joey is buried. He played the documentary’s trailer at her grave and wept. By releasing the film, “I’m not trying to sell tickets,” says Rory. “I’m trying to share my wife.”

Rory Feek, daughter back home in Tennessee after Joey's death

For him, the film is a living document of Joey's love. "I can never really get a grasp on what it will mean to others," he says. I know what it means to me."

And someday, to Indiana. As he edited the documentary in the converted milk house on his farm, the toddler often sat on his lap, laughing along with her mother and recognizing footage of herself.

"I don’t know when she’ll realize what it means," says Rory. "But I do know that time will come and this will mean a lot to her. Because one of my favorite parts of documenting my wife’s life is documenting her love for Indy.”