While grief is difficult to put into words, senior Hannah McDonell and juniors Molly Mintz and Michael Scheie found a way to turn it into art.

McDonell said she often uses poetry to express her feelings, and it’s what came naturally to her after hearing about Evan and Damian.

“The morning after I found out, it just came out of me and I wrote it down on paper instead of speaking about it,” McDonell said.

When writing the poem, McDonell said she tried to stay positive and process what had happened.

“I tried to stay on the positive side with my poem, and I said ‘he has attained what he seeked’ because I knew he was a religious person and believed in God and heaven,” she said. “I know he is where he’s supposed to be and where he wanted to be. Re-reading my poem really helped me understand that everything is going to be all right.”

McDonell said she never intended to share her poem, but after a dream she had the night before she decided it was the right thing to do. After posting her poem on Facebook she said the response from others surprised her.

“When I was writing the poem the next day I happened to be on Facebook at the same time and so I just shared and hoped that it would reach his family and his friends’ hearts and help them make peace that he isn’t where necessarily they want him to be, but he’s reached his ultimate goal,”she said.

McDonell said after posting her poem, various people approached her asking if they could use it, including junior Molly Mintz.

“The way she wrote the poem, I could see it as the verses and the chorus, and I thought wow that would sound really nice as a song,” Mintz said. “The lyrics and meaning behind it were so powerful for so many people. I read it and thought I would be honored to use lyrics like that in a song.”

Mintz said writing the song helped her process her grief, and hopes it does the same for others.

“Music is a really good way for people to relieve pain, so I think by making that poem into a song people can remember it a little bit better because it has a tune to it,” Mintz said. “I hope that anyone who uses music during grieving points will use this song to help them through any pain they might have, as it has helped me through my grieving process as well.”

After seeing the poem and song, junior Michael Scheie said he decided to create a video highlighting the widespread support given to the McManus family. In his video, photos of orange balloons, flowers and ribbons are shown in St. Louis Park as well as other communities across the United States. It even includes photos of support coming from other countries, including the United Kingdom, St. Lucia and Italy.

Scheie said the support given to the family inspired him to create his video.

“I saw how there were people sending pictures of balloons outside of the U.S.,” Scheie said. “I didn’t think about it until I saw all of that, and then other people started to send in all types of things to offer support, and I decided I could do something like that.”

Scheie said he hopes his video will comfort people and bring them together in support for the McManus family.

“I hope that it shows people that everyone is caring for the family, and encourages them not to lose hope,” he said.

All of the work done by students can be found on the Facebook page MISSING: DAMIAN AND EVAN MCMANUS, which was organized by senior Ellyn Adelmann.