Photo: Liz Atkinson/Facebook
A family is “desperate” to find a toy elephant containing the ashes of an 8-year-old boy, which went missing during a recent trip to Florida.
Liz Atkinson, of Iowa, said her late son Gabryel’s toy elephant, named Bruce, went missing last month during her family’s vacation to Disney World.
Gabryel died before the trip, so the family brought Bruce as a memorial. Inside a pouch on the toy elephant’s back was a bag of Gabryel’s ashes, Atkinson said.
Somewhere along the way, however, Bruce disappeared, according to the family. Atkinson said she has contacted each place where they stayed during the trip, but to no avail.
“I feel sick,” Atkinson wrote in Saturday’s Facebook post, adding that she has been “struggling to sleep” during the ordeal.
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The family visited three different cities and stayed at three different hotels during the trip to Florida, Atkinson said. The first stop was Cocoa Beach, where they stayed from April 22 to April 24.
Atkinson recalled bringing Bruce along for a 9 a.m. parasailing excursion on April 24, noting that a family member named Sebastyan had “held him on the boat.” She said Sebastyan brought the toy back to their car after the adventure.
The next stop on their trip was Disney Springs, where they “stayed for a couple of hours” before traveling to The Palazzo in Kissimmee, where they remained until April 25.
“I don’t recall ever carrying him from the vehicle to our hotel room,” Atkinson said, noting that it was stormy at the time.
Atkinson believes Bruce could be in a number of places, including the orange parking ramp at Disney Springs and at The Palazzo.
“I am completely desperate,” Atkinson wrote.
source: people.com
