Missing Pieces Tenzin Dechen

Missing Pieces

Ten seconds, and everything changes. Car as white as the snow rolling downhill, fast as a rollercoaster. BOOM! There you laid still; my brain was trying to comprehend what I had just seen.

Ten seconds, and everything changes. Mom tells me to look at you one more time, but I couldn't. I wouldn't. To this day, it is my biggest regret.

Ten seconds, and everything changes. Now you are only a memory that gets unlocked every year around June. When I visit our childhood home, it brings back the most haunting memories, but it also carries the only memories where I was truly happy.

Ten seconds, and everything changes. I look at our pictures together as kids, and I imagine how you would look if you were here today. I kept your soccer jersey because I know you loved it so much.

Ten seconds, and everything changes. I can't express how much my heart aches. I waited so long hoping to wake up, realizing that it wasn't a nightmare— it was reality.

Nine years later, and everything has changed. There used to be five of us, but only four remain. How deranged.

Tenzin Dechen, Grade 8 South View Middle School, Edina Teaching Artist: Frank Sentwali