Heidi Feek is talking out in an open letter to her father, Rory Feek, amid a family dispute over the care of Rory’s youngest daughter Indiana.
Heidi, 37, and her sister Hopie, 35, are contemplating authorized motion towards their musician father Rory, whom they declare has minimize them off from contacting Indiana, 10, and put her in hurt’s manner.
In response, Rory, 59, printed a blog post titled “love, dad” on Sunday, Aug. 31, wherein he stated his daughters’ allegations have “damaged my coronary heart,” and that Indiana “has by no means been extra beloved or higher cared for than she is correct now.”
That very same day, Heidi wrote an open letter to her father responding to his weblog put up, saying she and Hopie are “simply joyful to listen to from him” after they reached out repeatedly to no avail.
“You’re proper in fact, on-line isn’t the place to settle this. We don’t know in case you are conscious, however we’ve been attempting to achieve you for months now offline, however you haven’t been responding,” she wrote within the letter, which she shared with PEOPLE and later printed on Instagram. “Our hope is that this letter will discover you, so you may know the place our hearts are. Love is motion, not phrases. We forgive you on your unkind phrases. You known as us cowardly in your weblog put up for not dealing with you. We forgive you.”
She continued, “The final time we sat all the way down to have this dialog, and not using a mediator as you requested, you informed us you had been performed being our father. We forgive you.”
Heidi additionally included a screenshot of a number of unanswered textual content messages to her dad that had been despatched at varied factors in July asking about Indiana, whom Heidi says she final noticed in June.
Because the letter went on, Heidi continued with an inventory of issues for which she and her sister “forgive” Rory, together with the time he allegedly “deserted” his daughters in the midst of the evening as kids and boarded a Greyhound bus (Rory discusses this incident in his audiobook, saying he went to the practice station with out telling anybody and requested for a ticket to “wherever however right here.” He stated he dreamed of a life “that didn’t have the duties” he had as he rode the Greyhound, however later returned house after questioning who would increase Heidi and Hopie).
“We discovered peace in our personal lives and have taken the lengthy journey of therapeutic,” Heidi wrote in her letter. “We have now come out stronger on the opposite aspect of our childhoods.”
Heidi additionally wrote she felt “heartbroken” by Rory’s declare that Indiana’s care has by no means been higher, particularly with regard to Rory’s late spouse (and Indiana’s mom) Joey, who died in 2016, when the kid was simply 2 years previous. Rory married a girl named Rebecca in July.
“My coronary heart aches for Joey. You went on to say, ‘For the primary time in her life, she has a mom.’ How will you say that?” Heidi wrote.
She additionally spoke at size of her issues about Homestead Heritage, an “agrarian and craft-based intentional Christian neighborhood” that Rory and Rebecca are part of. A number of members up to now have been arrested and charged with youngster abuse; Rory admitted there may be “just a few unhealthy apples” in massive teams, whereas the neighborhood itself stated in a statement that “in each case of abuse we’ve ever encountered, it was our ministry that uncovered and reported the crime.”
“Love is motion. And we love our little sister Indiana greater than something on this planet. So we’re taking motion,” Heidi and Hopie wrote. “Love, your daughters.”
Along with their letter, Heidi’s husband Dillon Hodges wrote a letter of his personal to Rory that addressed Rory’s choice to cease permitting Indiana to spend the evening at Heidi and Dillon’s home in Alabama. In his weblog, Rory stated that Indiana “completely” misses her sisters, and asks about them “on a regular basis and would like to see them.” Nonetheless, he stated he’d stopped permitting sleepovers as a result of Hopie and Heidi “refused to respect my needs when she was there,” and that the crux of the disagreement was the kinds of leisure every celebration wished to show Indiana to.
“Whereas I attempted my greatest to respect your needs when Indy came around us (we by no means allowed her to take a look at screens, and all the time prayed earlier than meals, and so forth), I’ll admit that I repeatedly let her hearken to Disney songs (and generally even Whitney Houston) on my iPhone,” Hodges wrote. “I do know you stated no music, however please don’t punish the ladies for my actions.”
Hodges stated he’s additionally recorded conversations between Rory and his older daughters.
“I’ve been shocked and appalled by the way in which you’ve gotten handled all of your kids, so I felt the necessity to doc it,” he wrote. “You might be no hero. You might be no sufferer.”
A lawyer for Heidi didn’t instantly reply to a request from PEOPLE, and it stays unclear if Rory’s older daughters have but to sue him, and what for.
“I do know they’re indignant and pissed off and wish justice for the wrongs they assume have been performed,” Rory wrote. “But when I’ve realized something in my almost 60 years, it’s that it doesn’t work this fashion…. I’ll readily admit that I wasn’t an ideal father once they had been younger, however I attempted to be a very good one. And I proceed each single day to do my highest for Indiana.”