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"She died just days before my sister and I could show her again how much we love and honor her."
Ashley and Wynonna Judd both honored their late mom Naomi Judd on Sunday, as they marked their first Mother's Day since Naomi's death the weekend before. She was 76 and died after a battle with mental illness.
Wynonna, the 57-year-old musician who was also one-half of The Judds with her mom, shared a throwback photo of her with Naomi and Ashley from their childhood.
She simply captioned the shot, "I miss her."
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Ashley shared her own throwback photo to her page, also showing the two sisters with their late mother back in the day.
"Our mom and I visited every day I was home in Tennessee, and I FaceTimed her every other day or so when I traveled (except when I was in the bush in Congo). We shared widely especially on all social issues, especially gender, and how her life and walk was affected in every intimate way," she captioned the photo.
"She said #metoo to me about her childhood. She said #timesup about her restaurant workplaces when we were little. And she was livid about the shape of motherhood," Ashley continued. "Here are some of my raw reflections and what can and must be done. Mom, thank you for hugging me and telling me I am an extraordinary woman and urging my voice."
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She then directed her fans to an op-ed she wrote about Naomi for USA Today, which was published the Friday before Mother's Day.
"This Sunday is abruptly, shockingly, my first Mother’s Day without my mama. She died just hours before her peers at the Country Music Hall of Fame could demonstrate to her how much they esteem her," Judd wrote in the piece, "She died just days before my sister and I could show her again how much we love and honor her."
"It wasn't supposed to be this way. I was supposed to visit her on Sunday, to give her a box of old-fashioned candy, our family tradition," she wrote. "We were supposed to have sweet delight in each others’ easy presence. Instead, I am unmoored. But my heart is not empty. It is replete with gratitude for what she left behind. Her nurture and tenderness, her music and memory."
In the full op-ed, she praised Naomi for being "an extraordinary parent under duress" and for showing the Judd sisters "the power of having a voice and using it."
