Theme: Dealing with the death of a parent

Once upon a time there were two best friends
A little boy and an elephant
Finn and Ele spent their days
Playing in the shade of the greenwood trees
And among the bright forget-me-nots by the lake

Finn’s mama had planted the ‘nots
When Finn was just a baby in his cot
They grew into bunches of beautiful flowers
Like puffs of blue clouds on the ground
Ele and Finn would run through them for hours 

Finn and Ele shared everything
Taking turns swinging from the vines
That dropped like ropes from the great big trees
They shared their gummy bears and their ice cream
And raced each other through their carrots and peas 

They got up to all sorts of exciting games
Among the trees and the forget me nots
The foxes, squirrels and chameleons 
Watched them from afar with shining eyes 
As the friends played together under the sun

One day little Finn did not come to play
The woods were quiet as a sleeping mouse 
Ele the elephant tried to play on his own
He chased his tail and tried to stand on his trunk
But try as he might, it just was no fun

One, two, three, four, five days passed
Then six, seven, eight and nine days too
But Little Finn was nowhere to be seen
Ele walked alone through the quiet woods
He even saw his friend in his elephant dreams 

Then on the morning of the tenth day
He saw little Finn from far away
In a cloud of swaying forget me nots
He was sitting at the very edge of the lake
Ele went bounding as fast as he could 

“Hello Finn, where have you been?”
Finn didn’t reply, he just looked away
Ele had never seen Finn look so sad
He did not say more, but sat close to his friend
With his trunk he gently touched his hand

After a while little Finn spoke
He said his mama had gone away
“Where did she go?” Ele asked looking at him
“To heaven. It’s a place far away 
There are no cars and no special planes 
Or super speedy bullet trains
That can take you on that trip
You have to get a special invitation 
Mostly when you’re very grown up 
But sometimes also when you’re not so big”

“No one really knows how it works 
But everyone gets to go sometime 
And meet all those who have gone before
Some have grown wings there, they can fly
Some can turn somersaults ten feet high 
Grandmas and grandpas and even pets
And sometimes even mums and dads
Ele nodded, he understood 
And so he held his best friends’s hand 
As they both sat among the forget-me-nots 

And then little Finn remembered again
His mama’s familiar, sweet smell
Every time that she hugged him close 
He cried a little as he sat with his friend
And then for a while he cried a lot …
But by and by he felt a little better 
He blinked and looked across at Ele
Finn’s eyes were red as strawberries 
But he had a little smile now too 
He had begun to feel better in Ele’s company 

Half of Finn’s tears had turned to mist
Up into the sky they had flown 
For his mama a dewy little kiss
The rest of his tears had gone into the roots 
Of the smiling, bobbing forget-me-nots
Next spring they’d grow again
Reminding Finn and Ele too
Of Finn’s beautiful mama, full of love
Finn closed his eyes, he could now feel again
The forever-happy warmth of his mama’s hug.