This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Wynonna Judd opened up about how she still feels the presence of her late mother, Naomi Judd, when she is performing.
The 60-year-old singer and Naomi comprised the Grammy Award-winning mother-daughter country duo The Judds, which they formed in 1980. During a recent interview with Us Weekly, Judd was asked if she still talks to Naomi, who died in April 2022.
"I do. Onstage, I look up a lot because I see angels. Now I do it with Mom. I’m like, ‘What the hell are you doing? Where are you and why are you not here? And why are we not singing together again?’" Judd said.
The "I Saw The Light" hitmaker told the outlet that she feels closest to Naomi onstage and when she is spending time with her granddaughter, Kaliyah, whose mother is Judd's 27-year-old daughter, Grace Kelley. Judd is currently taking care of the 2-year-old for Grace, who has been embroiled in a string of legal troubles.
"She carries a picture of Mama around and a picture of her and her mom," Judd said of Kaliyah. "I talk to her about them and say, 'They love you very much.'"
Naomi died by suicide at age 76 on April 30, 2022, the day before she and Judd were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. While speaking with Us Weekly, Judd reflected on how she is coping with the loss of her mother two years after her death.
"I’m in a really good place," Judd said. "I’ve worked on forgiveness and my anger and frustration with suicide. [At a fan club party] last night, everyone had on Judds T-shirts from the ’80s and ’90s. I thought, ‘I have a choice. I can either be better or bitter.’ My grief comes and goes. I see it as a gift in terms of the healing part."
Judd told the outlet that she overcomes the more challenging moments of the grieving process by allowing herself to feel her emotions.
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"Something will happen, and you start to cry and think, ‘What’s wrong with me?’ Then you realize there’s nothing wrong with you. It’s perfectly fine to cry. It’s important to embrace it and lean into it. I cry as much as I need to, and when it’s time to be done, it will be," she said.
Judd credited her faith more than her family with helping her heal in the wake of Naomi's death.
"I don’t say that to be negative," she explained. "But family is sometimes chaotic and dysfunctional. Somebody just got married, somebody just lost a dog, somebody’s mother has cancer — this is all happening right now, we have a lot going on in our family."
"I read the Word a lot," she said. "Jesus is real to me. It’s a relationship, not a religion."
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However, the Kentucky native told Us Weekly that the loss of Naomi has brought her closer to her sister, Ashley Judd, who shares her strong faith.
"Now that Mom’s gone, it feels like there’s more of a solidifying — and that grout between the stones is God," Judd said. "We’re both believers, so we have such a strong connection now. There’s no drama there, and if there is, it doesn’t last as long as it used to."
"We’re older now, and we realize we have only so much time left," she added.
During her interview with Us Weekly, Judd also revealed that Kaliyah is following in her family's footsteps.
"We’ve started singing together," Judd said. "My favorite thing in life is to sit on the porch with her and eat ice cream. She’s in the rocking chair and she [says,] ‘Noni, where are you going? Noni, what are you doing?’"
"Being with her in those moments [is] where I realized no amount of money can ever make you this happy," she continued. "I thought it would, but it doesn’t."
"Lying in the bed with her before bedtime and her putting her nose against mine and me singing to her, and she’s starting to sing back… [it’s] heaven on Earth."
