Wynonna Judd is trying to heal after her mother's death and is going on a tour that was meant for the mother-daughter duo.
Trigger warning: This article contains themes of suicide that some readers may find distressing
'Judd kicks off The Judds,' a tour planned for September 30th was going to be a long-awaited reunion between the mother-daughter duo, Naomi Judd and Wynonna Judd, according to ET Canada. Wynonna Judd, 58, lost her beloved mother, Naomi Judd, 76, to suicide in April. Judd was very close to her mom and is opening up about the grief of losing her mother. With the hope of healing the pain within her, Judd will be going on and completing the upcoming tour alone, with a lot of courage and musical inspiration from her mother.
Judd will begin the tour in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and will play 11 dates through October before wrapping. She'll be joined onstage by special guests like Martina McBride, Faith Hill, Brandi Carlile, and many more. Then, she'll also head to Mexico for five days to play Brandi Carlile's Girls Just Wanna Weekend at the Hard Rock Hotel and Barceló Maya Riviera. She even made her first public appearance after the shocking death to accept The Judds' induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame just one day later. "Though my heart's broken, I will continue to sing, because that's what we do," she said at the time.
"She had incredibly great days in the middle of the dark days."
— CBS Sunday Morning 🌞 (@CBSSunday) September 22, 2022
Country superstar Wynonna Judd, in her first television interview since her mother Naomi took her own life, talks about grief, going back on tour, and more with Lee Cowan this "Sunday Morning" pic.twitter.com/EAMs8epkyH
Speaking in an interview with People, Judd said, "I’ll tell you what I know about death. In death, there is life. I feel both at the same time simultaneously. I feel joy and sorrow. I’m walking in a paradox. I’m literally a walking contradiction. I feel joy. I feel pain. I feel light. I feel dark. How am I coping? It depends on the [situation]. I’m on the phone talking and all of a sudden I’ll just begin to weep. Then 10 minutes later, I’m making dinner and I’m talking to my husband about our date night. Then my granddaughter comes and I cry some more. I cry a lot. That’s okay… It doesn’t mean it’s a sign of weakness... When you lose someone you love, it's like, 'Holy crap, this is really happening. Is this really happening?' Your brain goes, 'No, this isn't really happening,'" says Judd. "Then you go home and I realize, yeah, my mom's not here anymore."
She adds, "This is my opportunity to step into a situation that I don’t know that I am ready to do what I’m about to do, but I think it’s going to heal me. I’m teaching what I want to learn, which is how to have peace and joy in a really negative [space]. I want people to know that they’re loved. I want people to know that there is hope...The show must go on, as hard as it may be, and we will show up together, and you will carry me as you've carried me for 38 years ... So we will continue this spectacle. That's what she would want, right?"
Since their mother's death, both Wynonna and her sister Ashley Judd, 54, have openly bereaved in their own ways. On the Healing with David Kessler podcast, Ashley shared, "Sister came over yesterday and spent the day with me and spent the night and we talked about mom, we talked about social issues. She gave me a foot rub and she's in a pretty different place than I am right now. And we don't have to be congruent in order to have compassion for each other and I think that that's a really important grace that family members can hopefully learn to give each other."
Ashley reflected on the different ways in which she and Wynonna's grief has manifested itself. "Sister came over yesterday and spent the day with me and spent the night and we talked about mom, we talked about social issues," she said on the Healing with David Kessler podcast. "She gave me a foot rub and she's in a pretty different place than I am right now. And we don't have to be congruent in order to have compassion for each other and I think that that's a really important grace that family members can hopefully learn to give each other."
Both sisters have been pretty open about sharing their journey with mental illness, and Judd told CBS Sunday Mornings that she perceives this "mysterious" disease to be a "cruel disease and people think it's a character flaw and they don't know that it's this incredibly dark and light experience. She [Naomi] had incredibly great days in the middle of the dark days. That's why it's so confusing."
References
https://people.com/country/wynonna-judd-grieving-mom-naomi-death-cry-not-sign-weakness/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wynonna-judd-on-her-mother-naomi-judds-death-im-incredibly-angry/
Cover Image Source: Getty Images/ Jason Kempin / Staff
If you are having thoughts about taking your own life, or know of anyone who is, please contact The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-SUICIDE (784-2433)
