When Marten Kudlis died in the ice cream store Thursday night, he was sitting with his best friend, Nimra Bukhari, a 10-year-old Pakistani girl whose parents had become best friends with Marten’s parents.
The two children had been playing together in Lowry Park, as they frequently did, before Emilie Kudlis took them to have ice cream at the corner of South Havana Street and Mississippi Avenue.
Marten’s father, Marat or “Vito”, was on his way to join them when two cars collided nearby, sliding into a power transformer which struck Marten and killed him.
In her grief, Nimra, who lost her mother to cancer last Christmas Eve, wrote a poem to Marten, entitled “Wish You Were Here.”
Wish You Were Here
by Nimra Bukhari
I wish you were here.
And I wish that you weren’t gone.
And I don’t want to re-live my fears.
I know that it’s so sad.
To tell you the truth.
A fun day that ended in tears
They say that you’re gone.
But I don’t believe.
It looks like something went wrong.
But I know that you’re here.
Like watching your show.
Or (heart symbol) running around somewhere near
Mike McPhee: 303-954-1409 or mmcphee@denverpost.com
