Family lost late son’s stuffed elephant that contains his ashes in Florida BOLO

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Pictured here: Sebastyan Atkinson carries the stuffed elephant that once belonged to his late brother Gabryel.

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TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — A family says they are in desperate need of help after losing their precious toy elephant while visiting Disney World. On Saturday, Iowa resident Liz Atkinson made a post on Facebook asking for help after losing a stuffed elephant that once belonged to her late son Gabryel. His mother, Liz Atkinson, says they lost the toy while on a trip to Disney World.

Atkinson said the elephant, named Bruce, was given to her son when he was in the NICU and was with him for over 50 surgical procedures that were done to save his life. Unfortunately, Gabryel did not survive. “He slept with it every night and since his passing my husband and I have had it in our bed with us,” Atkinson said.

To honor their son’s memory, the Atkinson family took their surviving son, Sebastyan, to Disney World on Gabryel’s birthday. Active field search ends for missing Tampa man in the Smokies “Bruce, of course, was brought on our trip and small bag of our son’s ashes were inside the pouch on Bruce’s back,” she wrote.

“The trip was a bit hectic with 3 different cities and hotels and grief brain kicked in at some point with all of the emotions, making me really struggle with simple memory tasks.”

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Atkinson said she believes the elephant could be in the parking lot near Cocoa Beach Parasailing, the Palazzo, or the orange parking ramp of Disney Springs, probably after falling out of the car.

“I never in a million years would’ve thought that struggling with grief would have impaired my memory enough to forget him somewhere, and I tried very hard to make sure he was always in a bag or in my arms so this didn’t happen,” she said.

Atkinson told 8 On Your Side that anyone with information on the elephant’s whereabouts can message her on Facebook.

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