Remembering The Professor
What Neil Peart taught me about life and loss
I don’t often write about the death of celebrities. I don’t refer to them on a first-name basis; for me, that would come off as ostentatious and ingenuine.
However, when I have discovered synchronicity with another’s personal journey and that person dies, I experience profound sadness and a sense of loss. It doesn’t matter whether or not our paths have physically crossed.
Neil Peart, the brilliant drummer and lyricist for the Canadian rock band Rush, died on January 7, 2020, after a private three-and-a-half-year battle with brain cancer. Peart’s musical and lyrical contributions during his 40-plus year career with Rush were extraordinary. He was for me the most creative and the best drummer of my generation. His lyrics were brilliant, vivid and thought-provoking. His lyrics and books, one of which grew out of his challenges with personal tragedy, have had a profound impact on me.
Ghost Rider
One of my students who was in my Death, Dying and Bereavement class at Utica College in 2009, recommended that I read Neil Peart’s book: Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road. As an aside, the students in my class are very aware of my own personal history with loss, including the circumstances surrounding the death of my daughter Jeannine, who was eighteen years old when she died of cancer in March of 2003.
My student, along with her family, are huge Rush fans. Without telling me what the book was about, she informed me that I would find it relevant to the course. As someone who has discovered that my students are in many ways, my best teachers, I took her suggestion and purchased the book.
Neil Peart’s daughter Selena, age 19, died on August 10, 1997, as a result of a car accident and his common-law wife, Jackie died on June 20, 1998, of cancer. One year after the death of his daughter, he embarked on a 55,000 mile, fourteen-month journey on his motorcycle across Canada, the United States and Mexico. Ghost Rider described his travels and his emotional pain arising from reliving his losses. He was able to gradually re-engage in life by going within, communing with nature and eventually reconnecting with friends and family. He re-married in 2000. His second wife gave birth to a daughter. They remained married until his death.
Peart’s personal tragedies resulted in a four-year absence from Rush. When he returned, he wrote the lyrics to an album called “Vapor Trails.” In Ghost Rider, he described Vapor Trails as “an off-handed reference” to the ghosts of memory.
The Professor
I view Neil Peart as one of my most influential teachers. His writings and music have inspired many of my own personal blogs and stories. He was also known in the musical world as “the professor.”
However, Neil Peart’s teachings extended beyond his world of drums. Through his music and writings, he imparted many pearls of wisdom about how to work through catastrophic loss with grace, humility, integrity, and honor. Here are three teachings from “the professor”, that have helped me on my path after loss:
Keep Moving, Something Will Come Up
Peart embarked on his road trip after the deaths of his daughter and common-law-wife because, among other things, he was hoping that something would come up to give him a reason to go on living. And it did.
At the beginning of the journey, Peart observed two wedge-shaped rocks sticking out of a lake, and thought that he liked them because they looked like two ducks facing each other. He describes this encounter in Ghost Rider and goes on to further say:
“My eyebrows lifted at the realization; I actually liked something: and thus from that pair of rocks, I began to build a new world.”
Neil Peart helped me realize that sometimes hope and the promise of a new world can come from the most unusual places, if we are open to it and embrace it when it happens.
On The Road To Self-Discovery After Loss: We Can All Be Analog Kids
The Analog Kid is a song from “Signals”, one of my favorite Rush albums. Peart’s lyrics touch prominently on the restlessness of youth but this one passage, also found in Ghost Rider, speaks to the uncertain present and future that we all face after catastrophic loss:
When I leave I don’t know
What I’m hoping to find
When I leave I don’t know
What I’m leaving behind…
After my daughter died, I didn’t know what I was hoping to find on my own journey of self-discovery. Unlike The Analog Kid though, I eventually discovered what I would leave behind. The feelings of disempowerment, pain, longing, anger and the disordered state of my mind, body, and soul would be welcomed casualties in my personal path of self-discovery.
During my journey to date, I have discovered many truths that have allowed me to view life and death from many different perspectives and in the process find my peace with life as I know it to be now. Those truths have freed me from the chains that shackled me during my early grief.
Neil Peart taught me that we all have an analog kid that resides within us, hungry to find our true paths after loss. We can travel to faraway places and/or go within to discover our truths after loss. The truths that we discover on our path may not be those we envisioned but they may be the ones that we were destined to embrace.
We’re Only Immortal For a Limited Time
This is a passage from another song by Rush called Dreamline. I found this lyric by Neil Peart to be a very unique way to express that we are all going to die someday, even though for many in our society, it is a hard reality to confront. This passage also reinforces for me the swiftness with which our time on earth passes, and that after loss we should be thankful for every day that we get to spend with our friends and family. And that every day of life, gives us an opportunity to make a difference so that after we die, we remain on the lips and in the hearts of those who blessed us with their presence.
Neil Peart was immortal for 67 years on January 7th, 2020, which is in many ways, young by today’s standards. But in his time on earth, he left an indelible impression on me and those who were fortunate enough to cross his path and be inspired by his drumming, lyrics, and writings. I will always keep his teachings closer to my heart.
