‘Sustained us through this heartache’: Neighbors continue to help Franklin Park family honor late son

Signs dotting Franklin Park’s Brook Park neighborhood show a smiling young man, either giving a thumbs-up in front of the car he restored or celebrating his graduation from the University of Dayton.

Perhaps the cheeriness exhibited in the photos prompts passersby to smile, themselves, until they notice the word “memorial” printed within an email address.

The signs serve as continuing calls for donations to the Ian T. Brunner Memorial Scholarship, established in honor of a North Allegheny High School graduate who died on May 7 at age 22.

Courtesy of Jennifer Brunner

Signs continue to be posted in Franklin Park’s Brook Park neighborhood.

And the continued presence of the signs demonstrates the willingness of Brook Park residents to do whatever they can on behalf of Ian’s immediate family — mother Jennifer, father Timothy, brother William and sister Erica — since they received word of his passing.

“Our first action was reaching out to others,” Jennifer recalled. “And their responsiveness and their love, their support, their thoughtfulness has sustained us through this heartache.

“For three months — three months — the neighbors brought food for dinner,” she said. “They organized meals for us, which was so important. We were very grateful, because we were in no state of mind to grocery shop or prepare meals.”

May 7 started as a joyous occasion for the Brunners, the day Ian received his bachelor of science in engineering from Dayton, with plenty of family members in attendance. After the ceremony, his parents and siblings headed back to Franklin Park, and he planned to join them later.

First, he wanted to fix an exhaust leak on his project car, a sporty 1994 Mazda Miata. While he was underneath, the jack collapsed.

‘What are we going to do?’

Jennifer received the call from the coroner’s office in Montgomery County, Ohio, while her husband was en route to Columbus for work.

“I couldn’t call him with that news. I ended up sending his brother and sister,” she said, noting that her parents, too, had been in Dayton. “They got back in the car to drive to Savannah, Ga. So I couldn’t tell them until they got home.”

In her position as director of advisement for the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Nursing, Jennifer works with a scholarship committee.

“That awareness cued me in when we had to write the obituary, just days after,” she said. “And when we wrote it, for a 22-year-old, we weren’t going to have flowers at the funeral. It didn’t feel right. So then it becomes, well, what are we going to do?”

The answer was to establish an endowed scholarship to provide opportunities for students to attend Dayton’s School of Engineering, in which Ian was enrolled after graduation to pursue his master’s degree.

“We always talk about him being a ‘high Flyer,’” Jennifer said, referring the college’s nickname, “and expanding his wingspan, because that was him. He was so project-oriented and received quite a bit of recognition from teachers and other students because of his ingenuity, his tenacity.

“I really hope it sends a message to other parents who have significant losses. I really want it to send a message to fellow students, his peers, that life goes on and life is good,” she explained. “Yes, it can be sad and awful at times, but we need to focus on what we can do.

“And the scholarship definitely focuses on what we can do.”

‘A tribute to Ian’

The university continues to promote the Brunners’ efforts to honor their son, particularly through the webpage give.udayton.edu/ian-t-brunner-memorial-scholarship.

“I tend to look at it each day, maybe once a day, just to see if it’s changed,” Jennifer said. “And just that little nudge — it doesn’t matter whether it was $5, $10 — puts a smile on my face, because it’s a tribute to Ian.”

The Brunners anticipate being part of the scholarship distribution.

“We’ll be informed of the student who receives it, and that student will be able to hear a bit of the story of Ian,” Jennifer said. “I think that’s why it takes a way a little of that hurt and void and devastation, because a different personal connection is being formed in Ian’s absence.”

His Miata is parked in the family’s Franklin Park garage, where he and his car-enthusiast buddies labored to return the coupe to its mid-’90s glory.

“I miss that. I miss the smell of the oil, and the guys down there working on it late. I’m concerned about them, because they lost a really good friend,” his mother said. “It is surreal at times. It’s just so hard to keep the tears back.”

But, as she acknowledged:

“We have to go on living, and to do so positively. And we want to do something constructive in his name.”