His June 11 birthday started out well, with Bergman psyched to join AIDS/Lifecycle for the final leg of its seven-day fund-raising bike ride. “I had birthday breakfast with Mariellen and the kids,” shares Bergman. “Then, at 2 p.m., they all took me up to Ventura where I was to start riding the 84 miles to Dodger Stadium. There were 1,200 riders that had already made it from San Francisco to this point. I met lots of nice people. I hung out with them, went through the whole indoctrination and spoke a couple of times.”
Then Bergman turned in to rest up for the ride. “At 2:15 a.m., Mariellen woke me up to tell me my dog Murphy was in the emergency room and they weren’t sure he was going to make it through the night,” continues Bergman. “He was my 40th birthday present, and here it was my birthday that many years after. I raced back and we had to put him down Saturday morning, so I missed the ride and now I miss my dog. It is terrible.”
The golden retriever had been ailing for a month, but tests had been inconclusive. “It turned out he had a growth, and by the time he was in the emergency room he had blood in his lungs,” explains Bergman softly. “It was very sad. He was part of the family, but he was really my dog. It wasn’t a very good birthday present.”
