RUSH Drummer Breaks Silence On Death Of Daughter, Wife

RUSH drummer Neil Peart has broken his silence on the tragic deaths of his 19-year-old daughter Selena and wife Jackie, both of whom passed away within a 10-month period back in 1997-1998.

In his new book, Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road, which is being published by Canada's ECW Press, Neil provides a personal and emotional day-by-day account of the 14 dark months that followed his wife's death, and how the support and companionship of friends helped him through the bleakest of times.

"In the days following Selena's death, I had learned for myself how a sunny day could actually seem dark, the sun totally wrong, and how the world around me, the busy lives of all those oblivious strangers, could seem so futile and unreal — as futile and unreal as what passed for my own life," Peart wrote.

"It was hard for me to accept that fate could be so unjust, that other people's lives should remain unscarred by the kind of evil that had been visited upon me," he wrote. "The big question, 'why?' was a ceaseless torment, as my brain struggled for meaning (Is this a punishment? A judgment? A curse?),and when I saw other people with their children or with their lovers and mates, or even just apparently enjoying life, it wasn't so much ill will that moved me, as it was jealousy, resentment and a sense of cruel injustice."

"Once I went speeding past an old couple, and smiled as I imagined their conversation: him grumbling about me, and her telling him not to be such an old grouch," Neil wrote. "Then, suddenly I was in tears, thinking, 'I'll never get to be a grumpy old grandpa!' "

"I felt affection and gratitude not only for their help, but for their understanding, for simply knowing what I had endured, feeling for me, and demanding nothing more than I continue to live."