It was March of 2011, my best friend’s 60th birthday surprise, and I was up in Washington, DC at her daughter’s apartment to help make it happen. I got a call from my sister-in-law in New York that my only baby brother, Hal Spergel, had been rushed to the hospital and that he was in critical condition.
I knew he had been suffering from severe back pain, but was nevertheless surprised and shocked at the news. Having flown to Washington, I quickly rented a car and drove madly to New York. Once I was on the New Jersey Turnpike, my husband Richard called to tell me to get gas at the next rest area that came up.
I told Richard that I had plenty of gas; that I wasn’t going to waste time topping off the tank; that I wanted to get to see Hal as soon as possible. There was something in his voice that alarmed me, but I couldn’t quite grasp its meaning
. “I want you to get off the road. Now. Just move to the shoulder and shut the engine. Now.”It suddenly dawned on me that he was going to tell me unthinkable news. I practically right-angle turned up onto the shoulder and shut the engine. That’s when Richard began sobbing. I knew. “Don’t tell me! Don’t tell me!” I screamed. I swung open the driver door and flung myself on the grass, screaming the same words over and over. The phone had dropped to the floor of the car, so Richard had no idea if I was all right. He just heard my voice distantly repeating the same awful mantra.
Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, no one stopped to see why this woman was screaming, prostrate, on the right side of the road. I eventually returned to the rental car and resumed the drive, Richard talking to me on the phone the remainder of the trip, which no longer had the urgency it once did. Hal had already died.
The next month was a complete blur, understandably. I just remember panicking when I learned that one of my sons, Steven Bursky, who was in Iraq serving his country, was unreachable through military channels by phone, and a well-meaning friend had expressed sympathy for the loss of his beloved uncle through a Facebook post. I knew Steven had access to Facebook, and I didn’t want him to find out the awful news that way, so I contacted a close friend of his to get him an urgent message to call me.
When Steven’s phone number appeared on my incoming call screen shortly after that contact, I told him as gently as I could. Out of shock and grief, he dropped the phone and his closest friend and combat buddy, Gil, got on the line. “Don’t worry, Ms. Bursky, I’ll take care of Steve. He’ll call you back when he can.” Then the line went dead.
Richard called our oldest, Aron, who was living in Florida at the time, to arrange to fly him up to New York where Hal, wife Sandy, and his four children lived. The funeral, the wake, and all the rest of the concomitant activities took place with almost robotlike precision. I was grateful to have the job of cataloguing the never-ending food and flower arrangements that were arriving at the Spergel home. I could concentrate on minutia and delay facing my grief.
After four weeks or so, Richard and I returned to our Georgia home as our extended family sought to sort out how to make sense of this tragedy. My husband and I had been working with Buddies Thru Bullies, an English Bulldog rescue organization, for over 20 years, and that kept us pretty busy. We also were in the middle of pursuing our desire to become life coaches, taking a long-term course through SourcePoint, an amazing training organization headed by Barbara Fagan and Lou Dozier.
Richard and I sought to withdraw from the coaching academy because we weren’t sure, in our state of grief, that we could adequately focus on the curriculum. Both Barbara and Lou encouraged us to remain, pointing out, “What better place to work through personal trauma than in the midst of 45 committed coaching students and a dozen certified coaching teachers?”
We acceded, and continued the course, graduating as certified performance coaches. One assignment given to the group as a whole was to come up with an altruistic activity that had as its goal the betterment of some aspect of our planet. One coach candidate was a young teacher, Casey, who was looking for a way to help her Title I (poverty level designation) elementary school.
It quickly became apparent that we needed to get supplies to Casey’s classroom so that those young children could concentrate on school. That year, 2011, we as a group provided 33 backpacks and some supplies to Casey’s students. We informally dubbed our project Casey’s Kids.
Witnessing the sheer delight of the kids’ receiving these items, ordinarily taken for granted by more affluent students, it became clear to me what direction I wanted to take to honor Hal’s memory. Hal was very active in children’s baseball, to the point where he headed up his district’s entire program. By the time his son, JD, was in high school, Hal was taking JD’s team from New York to Georgia to compete against baseball champions from other states.
I remembered Hal telling me years before his death that some competing youth baseball teams from poorer teams in Long Island could not afford uniforms, and that over the years he noticed children playing with greater energy and determination if they had uniforms. So he decided to anonymously purchase uniforms for some of those teams.
It occurred to me that the best way to honor my brother’s memory would be to help children in need. The Casey’s Kids concept seemed tailor-made for us. As Casey preferred to pursue her project separately, I searched for an appropriate name to give to our charitable enterprise.
Hallyboy was the playful nickname I had given to my brother when we were children, and I love the fact that our charity is his namesake. When we finally arrived at Hallyboy Foundation as our organization, I was overwhelmed by the compelling need to laugh and cry at the same time. In my heart of hearts, I knew this was going to be the vehicle that would lift me out of focusing on solely on my grief and continuing Hal’s legacy of helping elementary school children of limited or no means. This was a win-win both for our family and for those lives we would be privileged to touch.
And we have so much fun doing it! We are in our 12th year, with every year Hallyboy Foundation delivering an increasing number of backpacks filled with school goodies. Over time, we have added to the items we deliver to each child to now include a hygiene packet and a matching winter scarf and hat. We also collect library books in good condition to either populate classroom libraries and/or to give to kids to bring home with them during holiday or summer vacations.
The sky is the limit! And I know my dear brother’s memory lives on in the difference Hallyboy Foundation makes in so many lives.
Comments