Tree crushes young family's promising future

[AGDLynn]

Sad story..could happend to anyone..


Tree crushes young family's promising future

By CRAIG SCHNEIDER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution


Courtesy of Cunard family
Brad Cunard is "in a daze," a relative said, after a fallen tree killed his wife and two sons, 6-month-old Owen and 3-year-old Max.


Dazed by the death of his wife and two boys, Brad Cunard walked around his home in Midtown carrying a photo of his family.

Sometimes, a relative said, he would sit holding an old baby blanket loved by Max, his 3-year-old.

"I can't understand," Cunard told friends and family members who come to comfort him.

Just before his life was turned upside down at 5:15 p.m. Thursday, Cunard and his wife, Lisa, Max and 6-month-old Owen William were traveling in heavy traffic along North Highland Avenue during a thunderstorm. They were moments from their home on Ponce de Leon Place near City Hall East.

Cunard, behind the wheel of the family's SUV, had the windshield wipers going against the driving wind and rain.

Jason Costa, 26, was looking out the window of his apartment, judging the storm's force by the swaying trees. Suddenly, the big tree in his front yard begin to tilt and fall.

The tree smashed diagonally across Cunard's black Toyota Landcruiser, crushing the back half of the vehicle, where his family was riding.

Costa's brother, Dan, ran downstairs and out the door. He found the driver of the crushed SUV standing outside, crying, and frantically trying to get a call through on his cellphone.

"You need to calm down," Costa urged, as sheets of rain fell and the windshield wipers continued to swish back and forth on the wrecked vehicle. "It's just a car."

"My family is in there," Cunard responded.

Firefighters rushed from their station across the street and began attacking the fallen oak with chainsaws.

Costa coaxed Cunard out of the rain to the porch of his home. They stood silently together. "I didn't know what to say," Costa recalled.

The would-be rescuers worked furiously, then seemed to pull back all at once, a witness said. They realized it was too late.

Cunard began wailing.

"He just lost everything, in an instant," a relative, Carol Martin, said Friday. "I don't see him getting over this, not even in the far future."

Devastated in instant

"Those boys are my life," Cunard told family and friends who gathered around him.

He and his wife had approached life in measured, thought-out moves. Their professional career was built around her talent as an artist, friends said.

Brad met Lisa when he was attending Georgia Southern University in Statesboro. She was a fine arts major, and she liked his wry sense of humor.

After college, the couple moved to nearby Savannah, where they designed maps they sold to tourists. They launched the venture with Cunard's former college roommate, Michael Prosser, and his wife, Beth.

After the two couples moved to Atlanta, they started a printing company, Kudzu Graphics, in 1994.

The Cunards waited to have children. They wanted to get their careers under way. Three years ago, Max came along.

The boy had his father's intense curiosity and his mother's compassion, some family members said. Others said he was a daddy's boy, through and through.

Owen arrived just six months ago. He was the kind of baby who would fall asleep in just about anybody's lap, relatives said.

Lisa liked having the kids at the office, which is on MacArthur Boulevard in northwest Atlanta. She set up her own mini-day care area, with a crib, little swings and a bouncer.

Owen played in the bouncer Thursday, a day that sped by like so many others at the office.

Lisa spent the day working on graphic design projects while tending Owen. She and her husband ate lunch with a former client they were considering hiring.

At 2:30 p.m., the business partners did as they had done many times before -- congregate in Brad and Michael's office to unwind while Lisa fed the baby.

"We were talking about [TV] reality shows," Beth Prosser recalled. "Lisa said she couldn't wait until Monday to see 'Paradise Hotel' again. She finally got hooked on a reality show."

When the Cunards quit for the day, they swung by the pre-school to pick up Max and headed home as the storm intensified.

Lisa rode in the back with the boys, since she liked to watch over them while riding.

"That was just like Lisa. They were just the closest-knit little family," said Lisa Harper, Brad's sister.

Then tragedy struck.

"Grief comes in waves," said Michael Prosser, standing on the front lawn of the Cunard home Friday. Describing his old friend and partner, he said, "One minute he is composed, the next he is crying."

Not alone

Brad Cunard is not struggling alone.

Many Virginia-Highland residents, people who don't even know his family, have visited the site of the accident.

Under a street sign bent by the fallen tree, they've built a makeshift memorial of flowers, notes and a white teddy bear with red ears.

"I pray -- live in peace," said one of the sidewalk notes.

Each person had his or her own connection. The randomness of the tragedy touched them, and made it easier to connect to the loss. That, and the fact that two children died.

"Watching your loved ones die in front of you -- that's very tough," said Jim Spotts, 65.

"We had a lot of tears in our house today," said Kim Paille, 38, who was accompanied by her 8-year-old daughter, Cody Paille-Jansa.

The girl felt for the lone survivor in the little family: "He probably wouldn't want to wake up this morning."

Last weekend, the Cunards were at a birthday party where they videotaped Max swimming in a pool. In a few weeks, they were supposed to attend a family wedding in Massachusetts, followed by a family reunion on the coast.

Now Brad Cunard is planning a funeral. He doesn't know what he'll do with his future.

When the tree fell, he didn't know what hit him. In a way, he still doesn't.

Said sister-in-law Sandy Cunard, "He is walking around in a daze."

-- Staff writer Add Seymour Jr. contributed to this article.