Posted on 03/19/2005 8:30:22 PM PST by My Favorite Headache
Mom Tries to Rationalize Prodigy's Death
By SHARON COHEN He started reading as a toddler, played piano at age 3 and delivered a high school commencement speech in cap and gown when he was just 10 - his eyes barely visible over the podium.
Brandenn Bremmer was a child prodigy: He composed and recorded music, won piano competitions, breezed through college courses with an off-the-charts IQ and mastered everything from archery to photography, hurtling through life precociously. Then, last Tuesday, Brandenn was found dead in his Nebraska home from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head.
He was just 14. He left no note.
``Sometimes we wonder if maybe the physical, earthly world didn't offer him enough challenges and he felt it was time to move on and do something great,'' his mother, Patricia, said from the family home in Venango, Neb., a few miles from the Colorado border.
Brandenn showed no signs of depression, she said. He had just shown his family the art for the cover of his new CD that was about to be released.
He was, according to his family and teachers, an extraordinary blend of fun-loving child and serious adult. He loved Harry Potter and Mozart. He watched cartoons and enjoyed video games but gave classical piano concerts for hundreds of people - without a hint of stage fright.
``He wasn't just talented, he was just a really nice young man,'' said David Wohl, an assistant professor at Colorado State University, where Brandenn studied music after high school. ``He had an easy smile. He really was unpretentious.''
Patricia Bremmer - who writes mysteries and has long raised dogs with her husband, Martin - said they both knew their son was special from the moment he was born. The brown-haired, blue-eyed boy was reading when he was 18 months old and entering classical piano competitions by age 4.
``He was born an adult,'' his mother said. ``We just watched his body grow bigger.''
He scored 178 on one IQ test - a test his mother said he was too bored to finish.
Brandenn was home schooled. By age 6, when many little boys are learning to read, he was ready to tackle high school. He enrolled in the Independent Study High School in Lincoln through the University of Nebraska, taking most of his courses by mail.
``He was such a breath of fresh air,'' recalls Lisa Bourlier, associate principal at the school. ``It's unusual to find a student 6 years old willing to shake hands with adults and say, 'Hi, my name is Brandenn, this is what I want to do.'''
In a college preparatory program, Brandenn took his classes in clusters - all science at one time, all social studies at another - and ``zipped through,'' said Bourlier.
His mother said his mind was so facile that if a topic interested him, he could complete a semester's work in 10 days. She sometimes worried she couldn't keep pace with her son's intellect, and the family hired tutors.
``He set the pace,'' she said. ``We only did what he wanted. (We might say) 'Instead of taking three classes, why don't you take one?' We let him make his own choices from the time he was an infant. ... He always made good choices.''
For his senior class photo, Brandenn temporarily darkened his hair, wore a red cape and round wire-rimmed glasses and posed with a suspended broom - the spitting image of Harry Potter.
At age 10, he became the youngest graduate of his high school and he delivered a commencement speech, saying he was so unusual he practically ``qualified for the endangered species list.''
``He carried himself very well,'' recalled Bourlier. ``He did just a very nice job for being 10. During the ceremony, he gave this excellent little speech. He was just so composed. ... Then afterward, he was running around with his nieces and nephews just a few years younger than him.''
Brandenn was taking biology at Mid-Plains Community College in North Platte, Neb., and had recently decided he wanted to become an anesthesiologist. He also studied for years at Colorado State, polishing piano skills that had won him state competitions and a table-full of trophies.
Brandenn turned away from his classical roots and started writing his own spiritual, New Age-style music, passing on a demo of one piano piece to the musician Yanni at a Nebraska concert. He released a CD called ``Elements'' and gave concerts in Colorado and Nebraska. He was booked for a concert in Kansas next year.
His music will live on - the Bremmers plan to release his second CD for fans who range from nuns to cancer patients to the owners of a New York restaurant where diners can listen to the soothing melodies of Brandenn Bremmer.
His family, meanwhile, wonders why he is gone.
``We're trying to rationalize now,'' his mother said. ``He had this excessive need to help people and teach people. ... He was so connected with the spiritual world. We felt he could hear people's needs and desires and their cries. We just felt like something touched him that day and he knew he had to leave'' to save others.
And so, she said, Brandenn's kidneys were donated to two people, his liver went to a 22-month-old and his heart to an 11-year-old boy.
Patricia Bremmer said in the days since her son's death, she and others have felt his presence. Her husband, she said, was comforted to find a message under his computer mouse pad their son had written six years ago: ``I love you dad. No matter what happens, I'll always love you.''
She wished that she, too, could have that sort of solace. She started rummaging through drawers to stay busy and came across five handmade cards from Brandenn with the same loving message.
Finding them, she said, ``just made it so much easier.''
03/19/05 13:45
Given his intellect, I see lots of possibilities, such as cracking the combo on Dad's gun safe or simply making a gun and some reloads.
Prayers for Brendann and his family.
He seemed to have little or no religious grounding.
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
–Mark 8:36,37
Holy smokes! The poor kid had to listen to this drivel all the time? Move on to what, might I ask?
Didja say things like, "ok, honey, we know you're bored..someday you can move on and be really great..."
creepy, jellyfish-like comment.
This unadulterated psycho poppycock hype is all one needs to hear.
These child prodigies usually aren't and they are the manifestation of some ego/pshological issues of one of the parents.
One mother of such a "prodigy" was even found to be doing the little genius' work for him
It is sad. The kid was probably always thinking "why don't you just leave me alone."
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the sholder of Orion. I watched sea beams glitter in the darkness at Tan Hauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain.
"I'll open the worm can and say it... "home-schooled".
What in the AITCH would that have to do in this instance; with this over-the-top gifted child?"
These parents had no choice but to home school or privately tutor this child. First of all, public or private education with other children would have stunted and bored him. Our educational systems are not equipped to educate children like this. Even a gifted program would not have met this boy's need. The other side of that is that he would have been mercilessly bullied because of envy and jealousy..He would have been smarter than the teacher which, in many cases, even when the teacher tried hard, causes jealousy and resentment in the instructor. Some try to label such a child as mentally ill. No, you should never expose a child like this to a failed bureaucracy like the public school. In fact, this child's intelligence probably made him and his family a lightening rod for envy which isolates people. Perhaps that played a role in his suicide.
That Harry Potter stuff is no good. I'm not joking. Too much dark side pretending going on for young impressionable minds.
good take
You are right. Anything that makes us very different from others will isolate us. Human beings have a hard time with differences. And, for some reason, people are particularly intimidated by very brilliant folks who are multi-talented as well. Child prodigy's of all kinds are exploited by others for money, when possible. Right now, look at what has happened to Michael Jackson..Another who comes to mind is Judy Garland. I suppose Shirley Temple was the most normal one. Even Donnie Osmond has written about his childhood as a musical star and of the anxiety attacks which he experienced as an adult. Of course, Marie, also, has suffered some depression. These individuals were identified as musically talented from babyhood and all were exploited to one extent or another by the adult world. We need to take good care of our geniuses..They could hold a better future for all of us in their heads..
A chilling thought..Surely they would have investigated foul play..
Suicide is the second highest cause of teenaged deaths. It shouldn't be a surprise, considering the crazy bing, bang, boom of hormones and the feeling of alienation. And if you're 'different', then surely it's worse. What teenagers don't realize is that they're all individuals and thus, different. They think the most popular kids in school have it made, their lives are golden. When they see those same kids a few years later, they discover that everyone thought they were the only one going through stress and unhappiness.
A relative had an IQ of over 170. He always had a very active social life, none of the weirdness your friend's son exhibited, and he's now happily married. Well, he turned liberal, so that might be a mental illness into itself.
I have a sense that he had thought of this for a very long time. He left because he was bored.
My thought too.
I owned a .22 rifle and a 20 gauge shotgun when I was the same age, as I suspect many Freepers did. There's nothing wrong with a 14 year old having his hands on a gun.
By age 10, I had access to every firearm in the house. I also knew the punishment from my father if they were misused.
I never missused them.
I agree. I also noted the New-Age religion reference.
Puberty?
I didn't post an article. I posted a link to an earlier thread so that those who were interested could see the comments there. Thanx for the critique anyway.
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