That's wonderful! You don't specify a melody but it strikes me that the melody for "The Lighting Express" would fit this pretty well. How oooollllld would you say the song is?

I have a recording of Sam & Kirk McGee (from sunny Tennessee) singing a similar theme. The chorus went:

The leaves mustn't fall, oh no they mustn't fall, I'm tying the leaves so they will stay, I've lost my mom and dad, now sister's all I have, Don't let the falling leaves take her away.

The verses were of a small boy trying to get a passing stranger to help tie the leaves back to the trees because the doctor had told him his sister would die "when the autumn leaves have turned and start to fall." I have never researched the song but assumed it came from the era when dying children songs were popular; tunes like "Little Joe," "Put My Little Shoes Away" and "There'll Be No Blind Ones There" come to mind.

Perhaps people will post some other "leaves" variants

- Mark