TROY, Mo. – On Sunday, the community in Troy, Missouri, came together for a lantern release to remember three teens who died in a terrible car accident last Sunday. Hundreds of lanterns filled the sky, some of them with special messages.

“I used to call him ‘Freshie.’ So, I’m going to write, ‘I love you’ and ‘I miss you forever, Freshie,’” Aaliyah Gish said.

Gish was Kaeden Tyler’s girlfriend. She said this past week without him has been unimaginable and is remembering him with two close friends, Rylee Swofford and Theresa Schulte.

“I’m basically just going to write that I miss him. I’m sorry everything happened to all three of them. Basically, that them and their families will all be in my prayers and my family’s prayers,” Swofford said.

“I’m just going to write about how much I miss him and I wish he was still here, and I’m going to keep going for him and just doing what I can,” Schulte said.

Friends and classmates said they still can’t accept that Kaeden, William, and Emily are gone, but being together to share memories is one way to help them grieve.

“I feel like it’s going to help bring people together because we’re all obviously grieving all of the losses and it’s going to help just like bring us all together and be there for each other,” Schulte said.

Julie Little, who organized the lantern release, said the event was about giving the families and the students a way to come together.

“When we think of someone who has passed on, we think of looking up to the sky, so I think that that symbolism right there is just beautiful,” she said.