The History of Heavenly Brickks

I am sure many visitors to this site are wondering why on earth I would purposely choose to “misspell” the name of my charitable foundation. Well, I suppose I should explain a bit about the history of how the spelling of Heavenly Brickks came about.

Shortly after the crash of Swissair Flight 111, I became very friendly with a woman who lost her precious 16 year old daughter, Tara, on the flight. Although Barbara’s (Babs) loss and my loss were not what people considered the same (as if any loss could be!), we held the same belief that the crash did not have to happen. We were (and remain) passionate about the fact that the aircraft manufacturer, the aviation regulatory agency, the airline itself, the in-flight entertainment system manufacturer and installer were not fully dedicated to aviation safety as they so often professed.

Needless to say Barbara and I were grief stricken and destroyed. We were in constant contact and most would have considered our “humor” quite black (if they were privy to our conversations), but to be honest? Everything about the crash was black to each of us. We both “told it like it was” and believe it or not – we found our conversations far more “comforting” than the stock standard conversations those from the “outside” engaged us in.

During one of our discussions, I mentioned to Barbara that it would be great if a brick fell on each of our heads, sending us Home to be with Tara and Ray. It was dubbed the Heavenly Brick. As our discussions evolved on this particular topic, we decided to add an additional “k”, because (symbolically) it gave the brick more “weight”.

When Barbara came to visit, she presented me with a gift wrapped brick (ribbon and all), which still sits proudly on a shelf right here in my office.

I hope this brief history of how I came up with Heavenly Brickks as the name for my foundation gives you some insight into the fact that I do not often “go with the flow” nor do I normally set out on my endeavors in a stock standard way.

If you click the Development tab, you will find an explanation of how my focusing on those early Heavenly Brickk conversations with Babs, began to take on a whole new meaning over the years.