To you, dear readers,
This extraordinary book your hands hold was made of more than paper and ink. It was made of admiration, altruism, awe, diligence, extension, generosity. It is a promise and a prayer. It is living proof that we are wise to hold compassion as our Lodestar and to believe that energy never ever is lost and that Brian James Patrick Doyle stirred up so much love in this world that his companions gave of themselves to gather his far-flung brilliant essays from the corners of the world and tuck them in between these covers so you might now know him more as we do, with his capacious humble heart, his soaring spirited stupendous mind, his tender copious humor, his feisty unfailing faith. Of course he had his foibles, was impossible to argue with, hummed through operas and meetings, was fond of repetition and being earlier than early at airports, but it was because of his relationship with time. He was attentive to and creative with it. He didn’t hurry or worry it either. He charmed it. His greatest joy was using his to delight you. I believe Brian had already been to heaven and back and found it irresistible not to return and restore astonishment, which is a sacrament, which is what you have just received.
To you, Brian James Patrick, for asking me to make us.
To Lily Marie, Joseph James, and Liam Robert for being muses and music for your father’s tall tales made with cinnamon and love. Each of you know how you have risen and grown and given. You are fortitude filled with life force.
To Ringo for teaching Brian what it means to love a house wolf.
To Kathleen Joan Yale for searching, typing, reading, typing, spreadsheeting, typing, permissioning, typing, all while winning the Gold Nautilus Award for Howl Like a Wolf! with Atticus on your lap and Rosario on your back, and to Vin, coming in from fieldwork so the two of you could juggle one more layer of literary largesse squeezed somewhere between dinner, bedtime stories, and elusive slumber.
To H. Emerson Blake, Mr. Chip, for enlarging the Orion offices to hold all of Brian’s essays till you can publish daily and for mastering dexterity in negotiating the negotiations of publishers, agents, editors, and innocents, for patient panache connecting all the professional threads while keeping the stunning magazine afloat, along with your bright boy Jay.
To David James Duncan for the dear, deep, witty foreword catching the hymn of him and for hearing the rhythm of Brian’s music and choreographing the harmony all while not working on your own mammoth novel and not wandering your own mountains and rivers, and to Adrian, Celia, Ellie, and your two horses, two goats, two dogs, and covey of half-pint chickens.
To Paul Lucas for agenting and fetching Little, Brown and for guiding the humble through the publishing wheel.
To Ben George for editing by not editing Brian and for securing our perfect title. To Michael Steger, for courteous contracting tenacity.
To all of the above for enthusiasm and conviction.
To Fred Courtright for enduringly navigating the rights and retributions and fielding questions at all hours while moving to Florida.
To Kim and Perrin Stafford for guiding us to Fred Courtright and for your seasoned savory wisdom and countless roast chicken dinners.
To Thomas Booth for vigor and brio while answering mounds of queries and for publishing Mink River in the first place and to Meg B. Holden for pies.
To Chris and Jeananne Doherty for legal and other advice while moving to the twenty-sixth floor with a broken elevator and for thirty-three years of salmon feasts in Neskowin.
To Robert Miller Senior and Susan Richardson Miller for legal advice and general guidance and the best barbecued steaks in Damascus, not to mention Thanksgivings.
To Elisabeth Mary Miller for being Beth.
To all the optimistic, stellar, brave publishers and editors who gave first light to Brian’s essays and graciously gave permission for them to be included in this collection. A special bow to Bernadette Walters and Martin Flanagan for imaging One Day Hill into being and for the hummingbird on the cover of Thirsty for the Joy.
To the long-legged, lovely, fiery Irish Ethel Clancy Doyle for mothering, teaching, tending, and for dusting the mountains and miles of bookshelves living and breathing in your home, feeding Brian’s hungry mind with dreams and visions all the while. For birthing Kevin, Betsy, Peter, and Thomas to sandwich Brian in between instead of becoming a U.S. senator, and for marrying the erudite, dignified, and devilishly handsome James Aloysis Doyle, who fathered the lot of them, all of you gathering and laughing and arguing each evening at the dinner table, elbowing and jostling and elevating each other.
To James Aloysis Doyle, for all the hours in the wars and on the train to the city, keeping all of us and the Catholic Press alive and well and putting up storm windows and listening and leveling and typing columns in the basement instead of writing all of your own novels, presenting Brian (while he pondered going to the state college to play basketball or Notre Dame to pursue an English degree) with the infamous observation that you hadn’t seen a lot of under-six-foot guys with ponytails and glasses in the NBA.
For the seventy-five years of your vibrant and desirous marriage, in sickness and in health, with the Times and tea, and for the incredible way you, our beloved Nana and Bopa, LIVE your buoyant faith, selflessly, nonjudgmentally, and sui generis-ly, which qualities marinated and flourished in the son you love so and sent out with stamps and a silver tongue.
To Kevin for being a hero to B. and for keeping Heron Hawk Eagle Egret Osprey company with him now.
To Depa for giving your brother his learning curves in music and rhythm and for your calm joy and peace and saffron and maroon socks hanging along the Hudson River.
To Peter for accompanying your brother through the oceans and backroads and forests and bars of your brotherhood and for all the beauty you bring out of wood.
To Thomas for being the solid, sturdy, sumptuous son, and bait for your brothers. For always caring for others before your deep-sea dives or your golf games, all while raising funds to nourish young-adult minds.
To Jane, Sharon, Diane, Neal, Meghan, Jess, Jack, Henry, Conor, Rachel, Tara, Colleen for millions of easy connective bumping hours of laughing stories and stimulus in Merrick, Ireland, and Florida.
To Steve, Gregg, Susie, Bobby, George, Chris, Luke, Maddie, Catie, Tim, Ingrid, Mark, Susan, Maggie, Will, Sam, Katie, Brock, Samuel, Robert, Kesa, Tyrell, Leo, Maurice, Hannah, Mary, Erich, Lucas, Charlotte, John, Paula, Vincent, Grace, Michael for millions of easy connective bumping hours of laughing stories and stimulus in Neskowin, Portland, and Damascus.
To our dear friends on the court and off, in pubs, bookstores, libraries, classrooms, and campuses, at concerts, coffee shops, and chapels, at weddings and wakes, in kitchens and gardens and vineyards, around your tables, on islands, highways, skyways, streets, and country roads, you know who you are and what you mean to us.
As Brian wrote for his friend the Reverend Bill Harper, “If a man cannot begin to count the oceans of love slathered in his personal direction, then he is rich far beyond calculation.” Remember to be rich when fear comes.
If we are united, then there is no room for fear. Just miles and oceans and streams and rivers of long songs of gratitude.
Gratias vobis ago.
Mary Miller Doyle, July 22, 2019