By Lauren Barbour

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While most students settle in to spend the upcoming winter holidays with their families, Sophomore Dasia Sengchanthavong will have returned home to Rhode Island, having spent the last semester in Hawaii, her last point of contact with her father before he was declared missing two years ago. Sengchanthavong requested that her father’s name and case not be disclosed. Since losing him, Sengchanthavong has done her best to uphold his memory, an effort which included the brief transfer.

“It’s really hard because I was so used to him being there for me and being the person I can turn to, the person that can make me happy and now I don’t have that,” said Sengchanthavong. “It’s just all gone in the blink of an eye and it really sucks because you’re just missing a big part of you that you have no idea where it went.”

Sengchanthavong spent her childhood alternating between staying with both of her parents, who split up when she was young. Even after her father moved to Hawaii, the two kept in contact and she continued to visit him occasionally. “We were really close,” she said. “We spent every day together, and he would get me whatever I wanted and there wasn’t a day that I doubted that he loved me.”

Sengchanthavong remembers her father as a kind and thoughtful person. “He was a great father, he would do anything for his kids,” she recalled. “He would never make anyone feel left out. All the time, he’d just try to help anyone who needed it.”

After losing contact with her father, Sengchanthavong decided to move to Hawaii in order to fulfill his wishes. While here, she stayed with her aunt and grandmother. “He always asked me when I was younger if I wanted to move here and I always said no because he lived out here for so long and I knew he was fine by himself,” she said. “This is what he wanted for a long time and I never gave it to him.”

During her stay, she enjoyed connecting with her grandmother and aunt, who became her source of support. “They spent basically most of their life with him and they saw him every day and they just knew the kind of person that he was and we all had that special connection with him so they can all support me and feel what I feel when times are rough,” said Sengchanthavong.

Even after returning to stay with her mother, Sengchanthavong will continue to live honoring her father’s wishes for her. She said, “I’m trying to live out life happily and I want it to be so that he can be happy if he ever does come back and see me be the person I plan to.”

With those aspirations in mind, she holds onto the hope that her father may return. “I hope every day for him to come back happy and safe, ready for us to help him if he needs any help,” she said. Sengchanthavong also holds on to her realization of the importance of family. “Family will be there through thick, thin, bad or good,” she said. “Whether or not you disagree or have a falling out, family will always come together and there is no better comfort from people who genuinely care about you and can understand the comfort you need in rough times.”

Although she planned to stay for the duration of the school year, Sengchanthavong has chosen to return to Rhode Island to be with her mother and will be moving back at the end of the year.