Family copes with son's mysterious death
On Friday, the Backhaus family talked about how Bryan Backhaus learned to ride a bike.
That symbolic moment, the one where the proud father releases his grip and lets his son wobble along on his own, that never happened.
"Wouldn't pay any attention to me at all," Mack Backhaus said of his son.
He bought a bike for Bryan when he was 6, but it didn't look like it would take. Maybe he didn't like falling in front of his family, Mack Backhaus said.
Then summer came, and a friend across the street started pedaling around the neighborhood. Bryan got the kid to teach him.
"I don't know that he ever got off one after that," Mack said.
Bryan Backhaus, 22, asked for mysterious, expensive pieces of bicycle for Christmas, bargaining away his rights to February birthday gifts to get some $200 fork that connected somewhere to something.
"We had a good time with him," Mack said, as he turned away from a table covered with hundreds of photographs his son took.
"Would've liked more," Bryan's sister, Autumn, said as she looked at photos of him online.
Tuesday night, Bryan Backhaus woke up with chills. On Wednesday, he didn't make it through the work day at Bike Pedalers, a shop where he started tinkering in his teens and bought a couple of years ago with his friend Greg Dunbar.
At about 5 on Wednesday, his girlfriend, Jenni Dickey, found him at their home. He was visibly ill, and went to the hospital with flu-like symptoms.
Doctors tested him for every kind of infection and virus, and told the family they didn't know what was happening, but it was serious.
They tried everything they could, Bryan’s mother, Judy Backhaus, said. But by about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, he was gone. An autopsy is being conducted to determine the cause of death.
Eleven photographs of Bryan over the too-few stages of his life adorned a table at the entrance of the Backhaus home Friday night.
Alongside them were business cards and a squirt bottle from Bike Pedalers. Centered on the table was a drawing Bryan did as a child — four brown figures holding hands around a box with three little windows on it. He remembered to draw the “W” for Winnebago on the trailer the Backhauses used to take camping.
"A Celebration of Family" a teacher had written atop the now-framed crayon portrait.
Bryan Jackson Jefferson Wilson Roosevelt Truman Backhaus, his dad wanted to name him. ("We're not a Grover Cleveland family," he explained.)
Judy Backhaus balked at this idea, and the baby boy went nameless for a few days. This bothered Autumn, who was 7 at the time, and had been begging for a sibling, only to go to school and have to shrug when asked about her new baby brother's name.
A great compromise was reached. He would be Bryan Mack Albert Backhaus, after one president, his dad and his grandfather. With two middle names in hand, Bryan began what would be a big life.
"Bryan didn't do anything small," Autumn said.
On the Fourth of July, he was always off cracking fireworks. It a sad day when the yellow Black Cat shirt that once hung down to his ankles stopped short of his midriff.
He took to camping, and when he got his driver's license, he was gone. Indian Cave State Park was a favorite.
He told his dad one winter break that he and some friends were going camping, despite the fact that it was winter, in Nebraska.
"Oh, I think we'll go south a bit," his dad said he told him.
Three or four days later, Bryan called home. "Hey what was the name of that barbecue joint in Memphis?"
He visited ghost towns and printed stark black and white shots of graffiti-covered, ramshackle factories on matted paper. He refused to go digital.
One representative portrait of Bryan doesn't have him in it. It shows two bikes atop an Explorer in the driveway. A black streak running diagonally across the print, and over the Ford's hood, is the pole to a downed basketball hoop, which Bryan crashed into.
"A typical Bryan day," Autumn titled it.
He went to Metro Community College in Omaha and took photography classes for a few semesters until the opportunity to go in on the bike shop presented itself. With his parents' support, Bryan and Greg Dunbar took over the bike shop.
That he stayed in Lincoln when it seemed like he could pitch a tent on another planet is a decision that made his family proud. Bryan would snap at his sister when she didn't eat locally. He gave her cloth grocery bags to help save the Earth.
"Seven years younger than me, he matched me intellectually our entire lives," Autumn said.
Over the long run, Mack Backhaus said, his son hoped to merge his passions and take pictures for cycling and mountain biking magazines.
On Friday night, with friends and family gathered at the home, he sorted through stacks of pictures. Some Bryan took on a trip back from San Francisco, where he and his dad picked up a Saab Bryan bought online. Some of those ghost towns, others from a stop by the Great Salt Lake.
"To me, they're all great," he said.
Reach Cory Matteson at 473-2655 or cmatteson@journalstar.com.
That symbolic moment, the one where the proud father releases his grip and lets his son wobble along on his own, that never happened.
"Wouldn't pay any attention to me at all," Mack Backhaus said of his son.
He bought a bike for Bryan when he was 6, but it didn't look like it would take. Maybe he didn't like falling in front of his family, Mack Backhaus said.
Then summer came, and a friend across the street started pedaling around the neighborhood. Bryan got the kid to teach him.
"I don't know that he ever got off one after that," Mack said.
Bryan Backhaus, 22, asked for mysterious, expensive pieces of bicycle for Christmas, bargaining away his rights to February birthday gifts to get some $200 fork that connected somewhere to something.
"We had a good time with him," Mack said, as he turned away from a table covered with hundreds of photographs his son took.
"Would've liked more," Bryan's sister, Autumn, said as she looked at photos of him online.
Tuesday night, Bryan Backhaus woke up with chills. On Wednesday, he didn't make it through the work day at Bike Pedalers, a shop where he started tinkering in his teens and bought a couple of years ago with his friend Greg Dunbar.
At about 5 on Wednesday, his girlfriend, Jenni Dickey, found him at their home. He was visibly ill, and went to the hospital with flu-like symptoms.
Doctors tested him for every kind of infection and virus, and told the family they didn't know what was happening, but it was serious.
They tried everything they could, Bryan’s mother, Judy Backhaus, said. But by about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, he was gone. An autopsy is being conducted to determine the cause of death.
Eleven photographs of Bryan over the too-few stages of his life adorned a table at the entrance of the Backhaus home Friday night.
Alongside them were business cards and a squirt bottle from Bike Pedalers. Centered on the table was a drawing Bryan did as a child — four brown figures holding hands around a box with three little windows on it. He remembered to draw the “W” for Winnebago on the trailer the Backhauses used to take camping.
"A Celebration of Family" a teacher had written atop the now-framed crayon portrait.
Bryan Jackson Jefferson Wilson Roosevelt Truman Backhaus, his dad wanted to name him. ("We're not a Grover Cleveland family," he explained.)
Judy Backhaus balked at this idea, and the baby boy went nameless for a few days. This bothered Autumn, who was 7 at the time, and had been begging for a sibling, only to go to school and have to shrug when asked about her new baby brother's name.
A great compromise was reached. He would be Bryan Mack Albert Backhaus, after one president, his dad and his grandfather. With two middle names in hand, Bryan began what would be a big life.
"Bryan didn't do anything small," Autumn said.
On the Fourth of July, he was always off cracking fireworks. It a sad day when the yellow Black Cat shirt that once hung down to his ankles stopped short of his midriff.
He took to camping, and when he got his driver's license, he was gone. Indian Cave State Park was a favorite.
He told his dad one winter break that he and some friends were going camping, despite the fact that it was winter, in Nebraska.
"Oh, I think we'll go south a bit," his dad said he told him.
Three or four days later, Bryan called home. "Hey what was the name of that barbecue joint in Memphis?"
He visited ghost towns and printed stark black and white shots of graffiti-covered, ramshackle factories on matted paper. He refused to go digital.
One representative portrait of Bryan doesn't have him in it. It shows two bikes atop an Explorer in the driveway. A black streak running diagonally across the print, and over the Ford's hood, is the pole to a downed basketball hoop, which Bryan crashed into.
"A typical Bryan day," Autumn titled it.
He went to Metro Community College in Omaha and took photography classes for a few semesters until the opportunity to go in on the bike shop presented itself. With his parents' support, Bryan and Greg Dunbar took over the bike shop.
That he stayed in Lincoln when it seemed like he could pitch a tent on another planet is a decision that made his family proud. Bryan would snap at his sister when she didn't eat locally. He gave her cloth grocery bags to help save the Earth.
"Seven years younger than me, he matched me intellectually our entire lives," Autumn said.
Over the long run, Mack Backhaus said, his son hoped to merge his passions and take pictures for cycling and mountain biking magazines.
On Friday night, with friends and family gathered at the home, he sorted through stacks of pictures. Some Bryan took on a trip back from San Francisco, where he and his dad picked up a Saab Bryan bought online. Some of those ghost towns, others from a stop by the Great Salt Lake.
"To me, they're all great," he said.
Reach Cory Matteson at 473-2655 or cmatteson@journalstar.com.
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