Neil Ellwood Peart, 1952–2020, Pt. II: Grappling with the grief
If life really doesn’t make sense — something that Neil Peart apparently concluded — you could argue the same applies to death, and maybe even to mourning someone’s death.
It may feel that grief really doesn’t make any sense either.
Except that it does. It may be true that few fates in life are indeed self-authored, but the people we meet and love, the connections we make, do make a lot of sense. At least, they matter. Perhaps that’s all that matters, even after one’s accomplishments and the gifts they have given us are taken into account.
In the days following news about the death of my mentor, Neil Peart, I’ve continued to think a lot about the grieving process, as I wrote, of someone that I’ve “known and not known” almost my entire life. I’ve contemplated this kind of grief against the more familiar kind where we mourn someone we’ve met and spent time with, like my friend whose death I also memorialized.
Vince Lombardo’s memorial tribute at a tree and plaque on Jan. 15 was similar to other rites and rituals we go through when a loved one dies. Like the tree and bench that a group of co-workers arranged to have planted and installed for another friend, Bill Higgins, who died of the same cancer that killed Peart, I recognized the healing and soothing benefits of such a memorial. After all the crying and heartbreak, it’s nice to be able to smile and think warm thoughts about these very special men who were in their own ways larger than life.
Still, I come back to my dilemma: What about the grieving process for someone you’ve never ‘known’? It’s not like I can reach out and hug Peart’s family and offer my condolences. I can’t pick up the phone and tell Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, his friends and bandmates in Rush for more than 40 years, that I’m sorry for their much greater loss than that experienced by me and millions of fans of the world-famous drummer.
Turns out, grief is a universal thing and there are things that help in the healing process. In fact, there are rituals that Rush fans can do, and already have done, like: chatter on social media, sharing of videos, photos and memories, lobbying for Peart honours on SiriusXM or in his hometown of St. Catharines, Ontario. Why, one drummer even recorded a solo tribute to Peart that clocks in at 24:24 minutes. (Why wasn’t it 21:12 minutes long? I wondered.)
These all feel like tribal rituals that bind us to one another.
For me, the ritual of grief and gratitude included fellow fan Tony Sollazzo’s reply to my Twitter post tribute to Peart. Tony said he didn’t realize we live in the same town of Windsor, Ontario and suggested we get together for the next big screening of Cinema Strangiato, which celebrated the band and its fans. He suggested we could then watch our favourite band together “without getting a strong flood of emotions” and I said I would take him up on his offer. (Judging by his Twitter handle, Tony and I also share another kind of grief as fans of the Montreal Canadiens who are struggling this season but that’s another story.)
To get a fuller explanation of the grieving process, I reached out to two people I know who are very familiar with the subject: funeral professional Scott Webster and Rev. Jim Evans, a United Church of Canada minister.
Webster of Windsor Chapel Funeral Home, who was part of the team that handled the arrangements for my father’s funeral in 2016, is also a musician. His nickname is Sax Webster which is a reminder of another connecting star in the vast Rush constellation that has been part of my life: the band Max Webster was Rush’s backup for years and I’ve seen them perform during several concerts in the 1980s.
Webster emphasizes that he isn’t certified in grief support — he defers to colleagues at The Heart & Soul Project — but he was willing to offer some personal observations and input.
He isn’t surprised at all that Peart’s death grieved me so profoundly. When a mentor dies, he wrote, it can be felt with the same kind of loss as the death of a parent, sibling, friend or a pet.
“When we revere such strangers who impact us to our soul and to the core of heart and mind, I think we tend to hold these idols in higher regards than even sometimes our own loved ones because of the special bond or relationship we’ve cultivated through their craft. Case in point: Elvis Presley. (Ever tour Graceland?)”
Webster says the initial shock of that loss can be significant. We understand that we will never hear anything more from them: no new music, no more interviews, no more writings. “They’re gone forever,” he says.
“How many of us wish we could hear our grandparent’s voice one more time or share Father’s Day once more with Dad? While we can’t because there may not be that recording from a gathering of recorded memories, were blessed with these recordings of those artists we tend to venerate and hold in high esteem.”
The way to “numb the pain” of the loss of an idol, Webster suggests, is to celebrate them.
“Don’t stop talking about them as if they’re not here any longer. Speak of them in the same light as if they were here, but not in the same room, just around the corner if you will. Paint that picture to others (as) to how they make you feel, continue to hold them in high regard, paint that picture of how they or their music/craft make you feel. Not as a biased critic, but share from the heart.”
Music is recorded and catalogued for future generations to enjoy, Webster says.
“Enjoy it. Hold a listening party. Share the stories of the whens and wheres (of) the first time you heard a certain song. Summer nights, the pinpoints in our lives when a certain song became a part of your personal life soundtrack.”
Webster says my tribute to Peart reminded him of how he reacted to the tragic and untimely death in 1990 of another musical legend, guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan. He recalled the emotions that followed for years and said these mentors/idols “carve paths for newer generations of budding guitar players, drummers (in Neil Peart’s case) and just plain listener fans alike.”
Our grieving, Webster adds, may come from the “fear that a certain person is no longer going to be with us, the thoughts that we fear we may forget them because we don’t want to forget them, we don’t want to let go of what they’ve had to offer for us (in) living.”
Rev. Evans says reading my tribute to Peart had him recall when his dog Molson died 16 years ago.
The minister at New Vision Pastoral Charge in St. Thomas, Ontario spends a lot of “time and spiritual energy journeying with people who are dying, often receiving the amazing privilege of being with them when they die, and then being with family members who are grieving, helping them with the process.” Some years, Evans says, he presides at 30 or more funerals “so I am well versed in the conversation of grief.”
Despite that, when Molson died Evans says he was “almost inconsolable.” He had to take two days off work and did everything “you’re supposed to do” following his dog’s death: building a little casket and burying Molson in his garden, holding a prayer service — “you name it, nothing helped.”
Finally, he called friend Rob who’s a psychologist and explained his uncontrollable grief. His friend’s response was, “Jim, you are so stupid!”
“I laughed and said, ‘I knew you were the right person to call, but please explain to me why?’ Rob went on to unpack with me how I worked with death and grief all the time. He suggested that every sadness, every grief, every loss that I had ever gone through was wrapped up in that little dog. Mo was the expression of every tear I had not shed, and perhaps his death anticipated every tear I would cry.”
Grief, Evans says, is “an individual expression of our humanity, and each and every one of us uses the places deep within ourselves to find the path to healing.” He suggested my own healing may have already started when I put down my thoughts in the tribute I wrote.
In his ministry, Evans says he presides at the funerals of many people he’s never met. He hears about that person “through the voices of those who loved the deceased” and then reflects and finds “threads that express the meaning and purpose of the life of the deceased. I try to know the person through the stories that are shared with me.”
Evans says that it seems that I “knew” Peart in my own way. He was part of my own story and each of us is “known by other people in various ways.
“Those closest to us know us one way (parents, partners, siblings, children) and the circle extends to friends, those we work with, and on it goes…
“None of us is known by any one person in our entirety. We have many facets and sides, we show different faces.”
Some of us, Evans continues, “have deep insight into the core of our beings.” Peart may be one of those unique individuals “who was so aware of himself and at the same time was so giving of himself that he was able to share more of his true nature than most of us (often the artist is the one who does this in our world).
“Why would we grieve any less for those who impacted our lives through their art? Often it is the connection of art and music that bridges those places where we feel that someone truly knows and understands us.”
Evans says he cried “deeply and profoundly” himself when he learned that CBC radio broadcaster and humorist Stuart McLean died in 2017.
“To grieve is not so much to profess a loss, as it is to understand love. The famous aphorism is true — we never cry if we never love. The only way to never experience sadness is to never experience love.
“So you love Neil Peart. You love what he gave to your life, how he influenced the garden that is your life.
“My suggestion is to not shy away from how you feel — and remember it is about you. This is your place, your story.”
Evans acknowledges “the power of ritual as part of the healing process,” saying that is one of the strengths of society through a church, religion and funerals. Not long ago, he continues, a “whole integrated machine” sprung into action when someone died in a community: Friends and neighbours offered food, visited family and participated in the ritual of a funeral service.
Evans says he believes in the power of ritual to help us grieve — not necessarily traditional funerals, but actions and processes in which we honour and celebrate those who touched our lives. Like Webster and my Twitter friend Tony Sollazzo also suggested, it helps to hold a ritual around Peart with others who understand my feelings and relationship with the great drummer and his music.
“And do what feels right for you — play, listen, celebrate…”
All good advice and comforting words. Perhaps for me and the many fans who share my love and admiration for an artist and mentor we’ve never met, there is hope for those who felt the shock of Peart’s death.
Like a memorial tree, plaque and bench, or a familiar joke or gesture from Dad, and that lyric or performance that moved us so, the people who meant something to us leave us with their afterimages, to reference one Rush song title that Peart wrote. Until then (to borrow from another song), the image of the way we feel is like the ocean spray that’s torn away in a spindrift.
It leaves us feeling speechless, wondering where is the wave that will carry us?
Claudio D’Andrea has been writing and editing for newspapers, magazines and online publications for more than 30 years. You can read his stuff on LinkedIn and Medium.com and follow him on Twitter.
