Love can build a bridge to healing for the Judd family.
Two days after Naomi Judd died at the age of 76, her daughter Ashley Judd, 54, is processing a huge loss while also giving thanks to the many strangers who have offered condolences.
"Your outpouring is reaching me," Ashley wrote on Instagram after the musical group The Judds were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame on May 1. "Thank you for every thought, prayer, message, text, email, post, expression. We each are alone and we are in fellowship, broken and held, protected from nothing and sustained in everything. It's the beginning of an old story, life and death, loss and life."
Ashley added, "Be free, my beautiful mother. Be free. #honorthymother #honorthymusic."
In her latest social media post, Ashley also shared several photo memories with sister Wynonna Judd, 57, including the moment they attended the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
During their recent visit, Wynonna and Ashley tearfully paid tribute to their late mother as she was inducted. After the event, Ashley said she was left "speechless" as she shared photo memories with her family.
"In beloved community with my big sister, gazing at the new bronze plaque inducting @thejuddsofficial@wynonnajudd into the @officialcmhof—listening to #grandpa, my altar to mama, with her silhouette from when she was 11, my bereft Pop @larrystrickland7 singing ‘How Great Thou Art' for me on my sleeping Porch (we are singing hymns this evening)," she wrote. "Sister, mom, and me on Little Cat Creek in Lawerence County, Ky."
On April 30, the Judd family confirmed the death of Naomi in a statement posted online.
"Today we sisters experienced a tragedy. We lost our beautiful mother to the disease of mental illness," read the siblings' statement, which was posted on Ashley's social media. "We are shattered. We are navigating profound grief and know that as we loved her, she was loved by her public. We are in unknown territory."
Naomi had been open about her personal struggles. After finishing the Judds' last tour in 2011, she fought a three-year battle with what she described as severe treatment-resistant depression and anxiety. She wrote about her ordeal in her 2016 memoir, River of Time: My Descent Into Depression and How I Emerged With Hope.
On April 11, the Judds announced their plans to begin a final tour in September, which would've marked their first concert series since 2011.