Okay. It's long but here's the story of why I love Rush so much:
On Monday, November 2, 2009 my mother died suddenly. No warning, no indication, nothing. She was seventy. My stepfather, with whom I have not had the best relationship, decided to have her cremated before I could get down to Vegas. I flew down the day after she died. Somehow he talked her sisters into not having a memorial of any kind. She wouldn't have wanted a "fuss made," he said. As if a memorial is for the dead. My feelings were not taken into account. Somehow, I made it through that week. On Sunday, November 8, Barry and I were coming back from the store when we were hit head-on. We saw the car in our lane but had nowhere to go, with a creek and guardrail to our right. So we collided. Luckily, it was an elderly woman going slowly. If it had been someone driving faster with a bigger car, we might not be here. As it was, we got an ambulance ride, me in a neck brace. X-rays showed no broken bones so we got a prescription for Percodan and sent home.
Barry hadn't been injured as badly as me. He did bend the steering wheel but escaped relatively unscathed. I had pain in my chest; like an elephant with its ass on fire was sitting on me, at first. That eventually got better but it turned out that my sternum and three ribs were broken. That took a bone scan to find and several months of the pain just not going away. The months that I would have normally been grieving became an exercise in swallowing that grief. To quote a great writer, I was out of touch with love in the land of the living.
In April, Barry was surfing the web when he saw that Rush was coming to the area in August. Why not? So he got tickets and life went on, out of touch with life in the land of the loving. Now, Barry had lost his best friend the March before Mom died. Mark was the biggest Rush fan - with them since the first album. I do believe that Mark was somehow responsible for Barry seeing that concert announcement. So, on August 8th, 2010, we set off for the White River Amphitheater. We left early since we'd never been there before, bringing lunch and sitting in the parking lot. We got to hear sound check, even. Our seats were right in the center, just up from the floor; we had a great view. But the view was just the beginning. What happened with me that night is best described in Bag Of Bones, about Mike Noonan walking through a forest when there is a sonic boom. The woods fall silent after the noise, not a sound. Then "a finch began to sing." The other birds joined in until it was business as usual, "and I got on with mine." When I came across that passage on a re-read, it stopped me cold. This was exactly what had happened on that August night. A bit later Mike comes to the realization that a neighbor he encounters is that finch. "The first bird to sing into my silence." That description stayed with me.
Since that August, Rush has been my true north. Their music, some of which was new to me since I'd fallen out of touch with their work for many years, inspired me. It made my heart sing. It made me start creating again. I picked up the guitar again, after 25 years. I read Neil's books: Ghost Rider was particularly apropos and touched me deeply. Slowly, my ship began to right itself. With this last tour, I decided to try once more for a signed item. I chose 3 pictures I had taken during the Clockwork Angels tour and printed them at the Rite-Aid (ooo, fancy!). I decided that I needed to enclose a short note (some people had told me that helps sometimes). So I wrote them a brief version of what you've read, including that they were my "first bird." I sent the package to the Seattle venue and crossed my fingers.
When making signs for this tour, I decided that my Seattle sign would refer to that letter, hoping that they would have read it and get the reference. So I made this 9x11 sign; small because I was in the front row and so I could set it in my lap. The night of the show, I was so excited! I was sitting right in front of Geddy all night. Now, you know I have had a crush on Alex since 1981, when I first saw Rush, and that I love his antics (and watching him play) but Geddy is fun to sit in front of, too (I sat in front of him on my last CA show and had a ball!). I put my sign on my lap and enjoyed the show. My dream of sticks didn't materialize but I didn't have anywhere else to put the sign so I kept it on my lap. During "Jacob's Ladder," as Geddy was at his keyboard waiting for his part, I looked up to see him looking down at me. Our eyes met for a second and he gave me the sweetest smile. What could I do but return it?
When Alex came over to Geddy's side of the stage during 2112, I snapped a couple of great pics of him (which you may have seen). Just before he headed back over to his side of the stage, he looked down at me and mouthed, "You're very welcome."
So. I knew then that they had read my note and that they knew. They knew what they had done for me, how they had touched my life. There was a sense of relief and release and, with that, and an overwhelming sense of gratitude.
Two nights later, Lydia (the fan liaison whom I had met in Vancouver and to whom I'd mentioned the pictures I'd sent) spotted me at the Portland show and hand-delivered my package. I waited until after the show and asked Kelly and Kristi (2 of my Rush friends) to witness the great moment; I knew they'd understand. Now those 3 pictures have pride of place on my mother's antique china cabinet. Kind of a full circle kind of thing.
I will be forever grateful to those three men for helping me "get back on." They gave me my life back.
*edited to clear up who people are
good thing it was before cell phone pics. yikes.