A Tribute for:

BRIAN MATTHEW MAHONEY

Brian was born in Everett, MA on February 2, 1959 and passed away in Wylie, TX on June 12, 2022.

Brian leaves behind his daughter Amanda, and his son Connor and his wife of over forty years, Teresa.  His sister Kathleen and her husband Saul reside in Texas; sister Colleen and her husband John reside in Colorado, brother Kevin and his wife Jennifer reside in North Carolina, brother Michael and his wife Laurie reside in Arizona, and sister Aileen resides in California.  Brian is also survived by his Texas sister-in-law, Dorothy.  Brian has numerous nieces, nephews and cousins of all ages.  Brian is predeceased by his older brother Pat, and his parents, Chris and Nancy Mahoney.  Brian's de facto Texas parents, Chuck and Geri Drew, are also deceased.

Brian moved to Texas from Massachussettes in the fall of 1978.  Shortly after, on a fateful blind date, he met his future wife on Friday, October 13th.  Every Friday the 13th since has been a celebration, even if it was only a Hershey bar.  Brian and Teresa were married in the summer of 1980 amid a Texas heatwave that is still discussed today. Those first few dwellings did not have much air conditioning to speak of, and it soon became a weekend delight to escape to the Sherman Holiday Inn for the swimming pool and the stale manufactured cold air.  Better apartments came along, and Brian made friends at all of them.  There was fishing and water skiing at the area lakes and Brian is the founding father of a rather vicious pool volleyball sport they all called "Gorilla Ball." After these years of living in various apartment complexes, Brian moved his family, now numbering three, to Wylie in 1989.  A few years later, his son was born and the family was complete.

Although he worked many hours, Brian found time to participate in his kids' sports activities.  Tee-ball and PeeWee football, basketball and softball.  Often he was the actual coach for a team, but sometimes he was the sidelined, unofficial coach known as Dad.  No matter the outcome of the season, Brian delighted in hosting pool parties for the teams.  Whether flipping hamburgers and hotdogs or flipping off the diving board,  Brian was a loving presence in the life of children because he saw them clearly and he wanted to see them laughing..

Brian was a big part of the bedtime reading ritual and sometimes the star.  Those Berenstain Bears books are much more interesting if Momma and Poppa cut loose with a bit of cussing and, believe me, the kids were riveted. As the years passed,  Brian's own interest in reading for pleasure expanded and some of his favorite authors were Carl Hiaasen, Dave Barry, John Irving, Stephen King, Elmore Leonard and John Grisham.  For quite a few years he had a December habit of reading Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.  He skipped last year, saying he really did prefer the cartoon versions.  It was only this year that Brian received his own library card in Wylie and he thought it was an adventure to go there alone and bring home treasures. He lamented the lost art of the Dewey Decimal System and the ladies of Smith Library are to be commended because he frequently needed their help.  I say ladies with great confidence, because who else would this charismatic and slightly flirtatious man turn to?  Even the ladies at the bank fawned over Brian as though he were a visiting rock star.

Brian had a rapport with dogs.  As a young teenager, he trained and won awards with his German shepherds, Caesar and Saber.  There are even now plaques and ribbons in the closet that he could not bear to part with..  As a family man, all thoughts of pedigrees and papers fled, and all of the pets were rescued dogs.  Brian saw a bit of good he could do in the world and that was to give an unloved dog a home.  Our big boy Brody, the finest and most noble of creatures, came to our family in July of 2020 just when we needed him most.  Brian and Amanda often took Brody to the dog parks, where his greatest delight is to chase bicyclists at the fence perimeters.  Brian liked to walk Brody in our own neighborhood and he was like a proud dad showing off his new baby.  Truthfully, Brody is about the size of a deluxe baby stroller.  Both Connor and Brian played roughhousing games  with Brody in the backyard, and it must have been some sort of endurance test to see how long one could last before needing to come inside for a Band Aid.

Brian liked Clint Eastwood movies.  A lot.  Anytime he needed a sick day, it was a day for Dirty Harry. He also watched and quoted frequently from the westerns, his favorites were The Outlaw Josey Wales and Unforgiven. Brian was a fan of classic rock music. Led Zeppelin is a given, but there were heated debates: Stones vs. Beatles, Sprigsteen vs. Seger  and Dylan vs. Young.  If all else failed, there was always the enigma Johnny Cash to ponder. Brian did a wicked good impression of Tina Turner singing Proud Mary that was a work of art and improved with age. He could write and sing a parody of a song that became family favorites,  Frosty the Snowman is shameless. Brian and his brothers grew up with the Three Stooges and Bugs Bunny; any overheard phone conversation was likely to have sound effects, and this was mostly back in the days when the cost of long distance was, well nevermind.

Brian had a lifelong love of motorcycles.  He told a tale of a teenage vacation in Cancun and riding a dirtbike.  There may or may not have been some minor mishap but it was not Brian's fault. Definitely not Brian's fault.  He had a dirtbike before marriage and a group of friends he practiced stunts with on the weekends on unincorporated white rock roads and gravel pits.  There were a few more motorcycles but Brian gave up street riding when Amanda was born. When Connor became old enough, Brian taught him to ride dirtbikes in the undeveloped field nearby and a few cows may have been spooked in the adjacent pasture.  Judging from the mud, the most fun time to ride must have been after a heavy rain. Brian's last bike was his pride and joy, a Harley Davidson he bought in 2018 he named Belle.  There were too few miles ridden, too few roads taken.

It does not take a New England Patriots fan very long to become a Dallas Cowboys fan once they get themselves to Texas.  In his daughter Amanda, Brian found a willing acolyte to the game and a devotee to the team.  The two of them watching a game in the living room sounded like a crowd and when Amanda was away at college,  they stayed on the phone throughout and still watched the games together.  And because of the nature of the sport, all of the other teams had to be watched and assessed too.  They spoke with such fondness and familiarity of the players that it often seemed like those guys were cousins who were apt to call during dinner.

Brian always spoke enthusiastically of a 1970 Chevelle he had owned as a teenager and that likely led to the bond he and Connor shared over cars.  They would send texts to each other of photos of interesting vehicles they had seen on the road or online.  The pitfalls and pleasures of every make and model were discussed, every trouble-shooting problem was solved.  The daydream of the ultimate project car to work on together did not come to be, but those bad boy cars were nevertheless built and rebuilt, month after month and year after year in their  conversations.  And those Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars rained down on both Amanda and Connor for every occasion when they were kids.  A trip to the store with Dad meant he would at least spend time looking at the cars even if he wasn't going to buy any this time.  Chuck and Geri joined the tradition, but they mainly gifted the cars to Brian, teasing him with Cadillac convertibles and once, a replica Harley.

Because it was a continuous thread of companionship in our relationship, I am going to share this:

"In the early days of dating, there just wasn't that much to do.  Many Saturday evenings or Sunday afternoons were spent playing cards or dominos at my parents kitchen table.  As the scorekeeper of one of those early games, Brian wrote the recently acquired pet names we had for each and listed them as players.  He did fine with "Bear".  I was "Angle."  A lifetime of jokes and teasing ensued over that misspelling.  Since the game of Yahtzee was already a favorite at my house,  Brian quickly learned to play, often with my competitive stepmom and even more competitive aunt joining the fun.

It didn't catch on, but Yahtzee may be an effective premarital screening tool.  In the first few years of married life, we  took a deck of cards with us to the laundrymat and played long hands of gin rummy on the folding tables while we took care of getting the clothes washed.  By this time we had a backgammon set and Brian taught me a version of the game.  We felt very cosmopolitan on those Sherman Holiday Inn weekends, playing backgammon at a sun blasted poolside table.  It was with those boisterous and fun loving apartment dwelling friends that we learned to slap down the dominos with authority and shout out a jubilant, "Ten to win!"  Little did we know, as the saying goes, that with the coming of Amanda, the shuffling  games between just the two of us would become quieter, and the new soundtrack was sternly admonished, "Shhhh! Baby!"

And on the games went.  Just frequently enough to catch me off guard, I would see from the scorecard that Bear and Angle had been the players.  When Connor proved himself tardy about getting out into the world, we took a deck of cards to the hospital with us and played rummy during the long hours while labor was being induced.  Adopted family members of the Drew Crew and Aunt Sissy were tapped to babysit the kids several times each year and Brian and I still had our getaway weekends.

Now the hotels were much nicer with room service dinners and desserts. In the hour or two before the dreaded noon Sunday checkout, we would eat pastry and fruit caged from the breakfast buffet and play one more game of cards, dominos or backgammon.  Last summer we celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary by going to a nearby resort. Old-timers that we had become, we were glad we brought both cards and the backgammon set so we could stay out of the sun during the hottest hours of the day.  If there was anything interesting to watch on that big screen TV, the remote wasn't willing to let us see it. We didn't think of that long weekend as a second honeymoon, and why would we?  Every day simply accumulated into months that built into years and they were all celebrated and don't forget, we also had those bonus months with a Friday the 13th dating all the way back to 1978.

On a day this June while Amanda was working from our home office, I asked Brian if he wanted to play a game.  She sympathized with us that shuffling and playing cards with arthritic fingers took some of the fun out of the game.  Because time is a wheel that cannot help but roll, the last game Brian and I played together was Yahtzee.  He skunked me in the first of the two games.  He filled in boxes with those high scoring fives and sixes, he had the Yahtzee, he had the straights, he earned the very important bonus points from the top section. He was very smug about it too. I won the second, final game, but not by enough to brag about.  Brian complained he had lost only because I gave him bad advice.  I helpfully pointed out that I also play to win.  Recall that talent for song parodies?

"Just call me Angle, at a payphone,  in the morning.  Angle! This boy ain't so boring……" sang in Brian's most woeful voice, really was pretty damn hilarious.  Every woman should be so lucky.``

Brian retired from his decades-long career as a machinist in October of 2021.  These last months have been a gift:  the best kids, the best dog, the best bike, and a bit of a honeymoon of falling in love all over again. This grief is harsh and deep, but Brian will be remembered as a laughing man.  He would insist. Brian is beloved.  He cherished his life and he would have stayed longer if he were able.