A Mother's Day Tribute - The Box, from the book, The Journeyman
Original song, The Nest by Tim Cooney
Review of The Journeyman
The Journeyman by Timothy Bernard Cooney
A Soulful, Sweeping Memoir of Survival, Artistry, Resilience , Truth and Unending Love
The Journeyman is not just a memoir—it’s an odyssey. Timothy Bernard Cooney delivers a rare, emotionally raw, and richly layered narrative that spans five generations, dozens of cities, and a lifetime of personal reckonings. From the dusty roads of New England to the soul-searching shores of Ireland, to the golden hills of California, Cooney traces the inheritance of trauma, the evolution of identity, and the healing force of love and creative expression.
What begins as a box of letters and family relics turns into a time capsule of a life bravely examined. Cooney’s storytelling is luminous and unflinching. He weaves together personal memories, family scandal, intergenerational pain, and the transcendence of art with the eye of a filmmaker, the heart of a poet, and the grit of a survivor.
This memoir courageously confronts some of the most difficult truths a family can endure: abuse, mental illness, addiction, and betrayal. And yet, through it all, what rises is a son’s love for his mother, a father’s heartbreak for his addicted child, and an artist’s ongoing quest to turn suffering into beauty.
Cooney’s prose is vivid and intimate—each scene alive with detail, every emotion earned. His voice is equal parts elegy and anthem. It’s the kind of book that feels like a conversation with a wise friend at midnight—equal parts confession and revelation.
With original songs, visual art, and archival materials waiting in the wings, The Journeyman is more than a book—it’s a multi-sensory experience and a testament to how storytelling can reclaim a soul and restore a legacy.
Highly recommended for fans of Angela’s Ashes, The Glass Castle, or Born to Run—and for anyone brave enough to believe that love can, in fact, conquer all.
The Box
The box arrived with the day’s regular mail. I pushed aside the bills and advertisements and picked it up, placing it with reverence on the kitchen table. I knew what it was, but didn’t know what was in it. It was 2024, and a year had passed since my mother’s death. She was eighty-six when she passed, and I missed her dearly. I missed her letters the most. Since I left for college in 1980, she had consistently written me with the family news, day’s events, prayers, and observations no matter where my crazy life took me.
When I began receiving them, I decided to save every single letter, card, newspaper clipping, and pile of pictures that she would send me. She always knew the right thing to say when I was going through the many challenges that I faced, and her love was unending. She always tried to make me feel connected to her through her kind words and heartfelt wisdom.
I opened the box, and the first thing I saw was her Bible. It wasn’t just any Bible; IT WAS THE BIBLE, the one I had given her nearly fifty years earlier. It was a significant artifact and a witness to her decade-long devotion to Jesus Christ and the words that were in that book. She reminded me often in her cards and letters just how much the gesture had meant to her in 1978 when I gave it to her for Mother’s Day.
It was a King James version in large print, and as I opened it, I could see how fragile it was from the many years of her carrying it around from prayer meeting to prayer meeting. The margins were filled with her handwritten notes, and it had a custom cover made from gold wrapping paper that held it together. She finished her wrapping by placing a sticker of a red heart right in the middle of the front cover.
As I opened it, it naturally opened to her favorite verse, Corinthians 13:4-8, 13: “Faith, Hope, and Love, of all these things, love is the greatest.” She was so attached to this scripture that she had a license plate made for her that said, Corinthians 13. It was attached to the front of her many cars until she could no longer drive. It was her way of spreading love everywhere she went. She would say it was her mission to do what she could to spread love around the world.
I put the Bible down and looked further into the box. There I found every letter and card I had ever sent her. They were from faraway places that I had traveled, and were short and sweet, but they conveyed a devotion to her that I carried with me my whole life. Then, I saw it - at the bottom of the box, her manuscript. In 1970, after losing her father to a sudden heart attack when he was only sixty-five and nearly losing her own life after birthing her eighth and final child in thirteen years, she began to write her experiences down.
The death of her father was a blow to all of us, especially me. He was a rare man, especially for his time. He was our patron saint, and my family may not have survived without his love and support. I thumbed through the hand-typed pages and could hear the clicking of her Royal Corona typewriter like it was yesterday.
She first wrote the story in many identical notebooks, much of it in shorthand, a skill she learned in secretarial school. I remember seeing them on her desk when I was a child and looking at the strange figures on the pages like they were a secret code only she could interpret.
When she was ready, after taking care of the eight of us and we were all tucked in our beds for the night, she would sit for hours clicking away in her room, typing out her feelings on that typewriter and purging herself so as not to carry them around with her, choosing to leave them on the page instead. It would be a year after her death before I could bring myself to read what was on those pages when they would become part of the source material for this book. It would be a difficult read.
I continued looking through the contents of the box. I then discovered my grandfather’s home movies and converted films from the 1930s through the 1950s, which featured my mother’s privileged upbringing during the Depression and World War II. I remember my grandfather setting up the home movie projector in his basement, where we would visit as children, and watch them over and over.
He would gather his grandchildren all around the small room to see the scratchy images shining out of the lens on the front of the projector as my grandmother arrived with the Jiffy Pop popcorn. There wasn’t any sound coming from the machine, other than the clickety-clack of the projector as the oohs and aahs came from the children. We delighted in the smiling images of my mother’s family as they navigated early twentieth-century New England with grace and humor. They were always dressed to the nines.
I gathered the many artifacts, and I began my journey to learn more. I began sorting through all the notes and letters, re-reading the words we exchanged for years. I digitized the movies and viewed them all, fascinated with the clarity and depth of the collection. I sorted through my own archives and began to put together the story that was her life and now mine. I called the sole remaining witness; her brother now living in Florida and interviewed him. I learned things I never knew and relearned the traumatic family secrets that shattered their seemingly perfect lives. The traumas that would become my own. Then I began to write in earnest as my mother once did, the project that would become The Journeyman.
Opening The Box
An original song by Tim Cooney, The Nest, recorded live at The HopMonk, Novato, California.
My Mom, Virginia Marie Donohue (Ginny), 1954
Virginia Cooney, (Ginny), the writer 1971
Painting of Roses by Tim Cooney, gifted to my Mom on Mother’s Day 2020.
The Nest, with Randy Doolittle on bass and Dave on mandolin, was recorded
at Mantra Wine Bar, Novato, California.
Much more to the story below. I would love to have you along for the journey!
The Early Years
As the years go by
A story written by Virginia Cooney. 1969
My mother wrote this story about standing up for me when I was getting bullied after church services when I was an altar boy at St. Luke’s in New Bedford. She was my heroine then and still is.
A note from mom, she would send these every week, sometimes twice a week.
Mother’s Day Card 2013
DEMO, The Nest By Tim “The Nest”
This is the first demo of the song The Nest, I recorded the song in my home in Petaluma CA.
Tim Cooney
Jan 30, 2024
C Am Fm7
So he took a leap
Into the great unknown
He flew around the sun
And he was all alone
He was all alone
He floated on the clouds
Where there was barely a sound
It was quiet up there
And there was no one around
There was no one around
Chorus
C. G. F. G.
I am here where I am
This is me so here I am
It is here I make my stand
This is me, I am who I am
He flew higher still
Trying to reach the stars
They were shinning out there
They couldn’t be that far
They couldn’t be that far
It took all of his will
But then he tumbled back down
What will he do now
Where is he bound
Where is he bound
Chorus
C. G. F. G.
It is here where I am
This is me so here I am
It is here I make my stand
This is me, I am who I am
It grew dark out there
And he was cold and scared
He saw a place he could land
Out by the sea and the sand
Out by the sea and the sand
So he settled down
Where he could be free
He had to find a place
To be what he wanted to be
Be what he wanted to be
Chorus
C. G. F. G.
It is here where I am
This is me so here I am
It is here I make my stand
This is me, I am who I am
Then one day she appeared
They flew around the sun
She couldn’t pass him by
Now the two are one
Now the two are one
So they took a leap
Into the great unknown
They flew around the sun
And built themselves a home
They built themselves a home
Chorus
She appeared where I am
She is here, where I stand
She is here where I am
With her, I am who I am
Thanks you so much for following my story. See you soon!n