A mum with cancer distanced herself from her two-year-old daughter in the months leading up to her death, in order to soften the blow of losing her.
Joey Feek died aged 40 on Friday 4 March 2016, leaving behind her husband Rory and two-year-old daughter Indiana.
In the months preceding her death, the American country singer - best known as half of duo Joey & Rory - made the heart-wrenching decision to lessen the amount of time she spent with her daughter.
Feek's husband Rory explained in: a blog posted on Sunday 27 March:
"She started going against everything in her being that told her 'time was short' so hold her baby even tighter… and longer… and more… and instead – she handed the baby to me, and sat alone in a bed and watched and listened as my relationship with Indy grew…and hers lessened."
Feek was diagnosed with cervical cancer in June 2014 and underwent surgery, but the cancer returned a year later.
In October 2015 Feek announced that she was no longer undergoing treatment, and she had chosen to return home to her family.
Until that point, her husband wrote, Feek had been: "Indy's whole world. Everyone else was… well, just everyone else. Including me."
So she made a decision: "He must become greater and I must become less."
Feek's husband commented that he doesn't know if he would have been able to make such a selfless move.
"She carried the pain on her own shoulders, to try to keep it off of mine. And even more so, off of Indy’s," he wrote.
Less than a month after Feek's death, her plan seems to have gone some way towards helping her daughter cope with the loss.
"Indy has not asked for her mama. Not one single time since Joey’s been gone," Rory Feek wrote.
"It’s almost as if she hasn’t noticed that she’s not here. And that is so sad… and oh, so wonderful – all at the same time."