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
Any idea why that might be?
The only thing I can think of is the relatively unfettered access to some highly addictive controlled substances. These substances are very useful for patients undergoing surgery, but they do not have access to them outside the OR.
I remember in residency that there was some testimony from prior anesthesiology practitioners who were reformed addicts who warned about the highly addictive properties of newer anesthetics such as Fentanyl, Sufentanil etc.
Other than that, I do not know...
I heard that, too. Then later read that that was a fallacy.
It sure is hard to take some people seriesly around here. People who make such rediculous statements like "If you kill yourself you can't go to heaven". On what do these people base such statements. Atleast the could give references so we don't think is't just another sphincter smelling opinion.
Thanks. I had considered that possibility. Access.
Yea sad is definately the word for it. I read about his death in the local paper a week or so ago. Article above was a little more detailed. The reason for him killing himself obviously went with him to his grave, the thing I found interesting is that the parents said he was happy up until his suicide. The fact is though that parents usually don't notice, especially in this case, it seems that the parents were so focused on the future of their child that they blind themselves from the other parts of his life. You see it so often in child prodigies, doesn't matter which catagory the child is gifted in, the parents always seem to be blinded on important parts of life of their kid. They do what they think is 'best' for their kid. The place these parents went wrong was taking away his childhood, I don't get why parent's do relieze childhood is the cornerstone of your life. He went without going to private/public school. I'm not saying home schooling is wrong, I was homeschooled but you lose a lot while doing it. The parents have to relieze this and make up for those losses, have the kid put into some public group, weather a sport, or debate club. Anything with kids his own age. That way he gets the companionship you require from public schools. Branndon, I can tell must of had little to none of a childhood. Being pressured, intentional or not by your peers and parents is hard for anyone, especially a 14 yr boy. I read a lot of religious posts here just now, that just seems silly, you're not going to change anyones opinion by posting them, just start up arguments. Btw to whomever posted the quote of "The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very very brightly." I love that quote, never heard of it before. Thanks for mentioning it.
"Any idea why that might be?"
I have heard that the anesthesiologist is the most important person in the operating room since he/she literally holds the patient's life in his/her hands for the duration of the operation. Maybe that awesome responsibility gets to them after a while. The operation could be a complete success, yet the patient could end up dead because of something the anesthesiologist did wrong.
Just my two cents.
Yah, I've met some child prodigies as adults. They told me the thing they missed the most was having peers and being accepted.
Can you find a more well adjusted, productive person than her?
Well, her taste in hairsylist leaves a little to be desired.
And her Mid-East policy sucks.
...and IIRC she's pro-choice.
Cheers!
No mention is there. Possibly the one thing lacking which left a hole in his life.
probably was kidding.
Hormones. The sex drive.
The dog that didn't bark.
You were first, I see.
Tragic.
He probably just wanted to be normal though.
Obviously not the case when it came to his final decision. Perhaps he didn't have any real discipline....
I thought I was senile when I read what I wrote and didn’t remember it. Then I looked at the date. LOL. I wrote it two years ago. But it’s still a fair question. Poor guy.
OTOH, I believe he is in heaven and that God welcomed him home.
As for suicide, many of us have our own way of committing suicide. We drink, smoke or eat ourselves to death. Some are even anorexic, which is another way of committing suicide. Granted, it's not as fast as a bullet, but it's still a slower suicide.
The good news is, we are all forgiven if we accept Christ as our Savior.
sw
I think you’re right. “Meaningless....”
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