He was born in Wantagh, N.Y., Long Island, in the summer of 1958. You can probably still find some of his bicycle tracks in the woods there because he biked everywhere, went down every path. He was a curious kid whom his childhood friends called The Professor, both because he was smart and unafraid to learn new things and because the terms “nerd” and “geek” hadn’t been invented yet.
In 1991 he married Marcy and they had four girls, Emily, Sarah, Chloe and Hannah, all of whom carry in them a measure of his intelligence, wit and kindness. He never got tired of being a Dad. Once, when Hannah, the youngest, lost one of her baby teeth in the nurse’s office at school, Brian returned home from work the same evening to see that the lights were still on in the school. He managed to convince the superintendent of the urgency of the matter and, after a deep dive, on hands and knees, into the petri dish of a school nurse’s office, he emerged, triumphant, with the nearly translucent pearl.
But he was always ready to help anyone, whether someone needed directions or something more. That’s why he became a nurse. And when, later in life, he himself needed help, he gave back by earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology so that he could better help the community that had helped him.
If you’re wondering who he was, he was that guy ahead of you in line at Lowe’s, chatting up the cashier about the project he was working on, the guy with big eyes, glasses, a beard and, more often than not, suspenders-sort of a professorial type if the professor in question could quote Thomas Merton, build kitchen cabinets and administer IVs.
Brian will of course be missed by his family and many friends, and especially by Marcy and the girls. But he will also be missed by lost Quebec tourists wondering how to get from Target to the City Beach, by stray and injured animals of all kinds, and by the spiders and other insects that, whenever Brian found them in the house, would receive a reprieve and be ushered to a new home in a bush in the front yard.
Family and friends are invited to a gathering to celebrate Brian’s life on Saturday, August 11, from 11a.m. to 2p.m., at the Vesco Ridge Vineyards at 167 Stratton Hill Road, West Chazy.
To plant a tree in memory of Brian Joseph McNally, please visit Tribute Store.Published on August 8, 2018