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On 14 July 2016, the Facebook page Creepy Nouns published an image about the life and death of Brandenn Bremmer, asserting that the boy was a prodigy who took his own life solely so he could donate his organs to others in need: The claim was disturbing, suggesting that Bremmer made one of life's most horrifying decisions for an unusual and selfless reason: so that others could live. Moreover, his tragic altruism occurred when he was just 14, well before he had a chance to truly put his myriad talents to use. That the precocious Brandenn Bremmer lived and died is not in question: the New York Times profiled his life and sad demise in 2005: Noting that Brandenn's life held enormous promise, like that of a handful of other child prodigies in the United States, the paper reported that Brandenn was euthymic and actively planning for his future when he unexpectedly killed himself and that he left behind no note nor any indication why he chose to shoot himself. In addition, his mother told the Times that Brandenn was never depressed and outwardly planning a career as an anesthesiologist (an undertaking involving several years of study). However, the paper went on to quote Ms. Bremmer's off-the-cuff inference in the immediate wake of Brandenn's death: Ms. Bremmer didn't specify why she believed her son's suicide was expressly for the purpose of organ donation, merely that the thought was one that brought her comfort in what was undoubtedly the darkest time in her life. However, even Brandenn's mother didn't say he did kill himself to donate his organs, merely that she speculated that may have been the case. (And her remarks might have been addressing the manner in which Brandenn took his life, which preserved the vital organs most commonly used in transplantation, rather than the reason he took his life.) While Brandenn's mother arguably knew him better than anyone, her comments were clearly made in a fog of grief just days after she discovered her son's body. Quite possibly she was not thinking clearly in the immediate aftermath of her child's tragic death. A 2006 New Yorker profile of Brandenn shed no further light on why the boy opted to end his life, but it did provide a broader picture of his state of mind. In that article [PDF], Brandenn's parents discussed his plans for the immediate and distant future: Although Brandenn's parents felt assured he was never depressed, the scant group of peers with whom he was able to interact provided a different perspective to the magazine. A teen girl identified only as K., a girlfriend, shared correspondence between the two around Christmas 2004: Brandenn and K. then fell out of touch for benign reasons, and in March 2005, the Bremmers came home from the store to find Brandenn clinging to life after he'd shot himself. In the New Yorker profile, Brandenn's mother revisited her statement that he had killed himself solely to donate his organs: The profile also delved into Brandenn's overall development between the ages of 14, with his parents being guided largely by Linda Silverman, a guru of sorts to parents of gifted children. When the New Yorker spoke to Silverman, she (like Patti Bremmer) expressed belief that Brandenn's death was a function of the supernatural aspects of gifted children: Patti Bremmer, like Silverman, described Brandenn as an indigo child and informed correspondents on an e-mail list for parents of gifted children that several of her son's organs were apportioned in a somewhat miraculous fashion to the dying. But his friends and siblings told the magazine they agreed that he had probably felt alone or sad or frustrated or some combination of those things, and was momentarily helpless to find a way out, adding that unfortunately, he had been in a position to act on a suicidal impulse. The only record of the reasons behind Brandenn's state of mind remain in e-mails exchanged with far-flung peers, during which a state of depression (and not a grand sacrifice) was the only revealing factor mentioned by the teenager before his suicide.
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