This is the article for the Idaho State Journal

Gabriel Grant Saville was born into our family on January 26, 2009. Gabe was our fifth child, second son. Gabe was 8lbs 2oz. and was in perfect health.

Gabe was just like any other child his age hitting all the normal milestones and always passing his well baby checks with flying colors. Gabe was a very happy boy. We loved having him in our family and enjoyed every minute we were able to spend with him.

On Saturday, July 10, we planned on spending the day like any other regular Saturday. We ran a few errands, played outside in the water and just spent time together. Saturday evening David and I were downstairs with the 3 oldest playing some Lego Harry Potter on the XBOX and Gabe and Isaac were watching a movie upstairs like they did all the time. Isaac came downstairs and said, “Mom, Gabie is dead.” I, of course, first thought because Isaac was a 4 year old, he was just being silly but decided to go check on Gabie anyway. Our nightmare began. I found Gabe in the bedroom with blue lips. I immediately called for David who knew something was wrong and called 911. We started CPR and the ambulance got there very fast. We had a 3 minute ride to the ER and then 45 minutes of the scariest waiting of my life. After 45 minutes of CPR and adrenaline shots, the doctors and nurses of the ER got his heartbeat back. He was then taken to have a CT Scan done and moved into the PICU. The doctor on call then informed us that Gabe had massive swelling of the brain from lack of oxygen and blood flow for so long. The next 48 to 72 hours were critical. On Monday, July 12, 2010, after many tests and waiting for some sign of brain activity, they declared Gabriel brain dead. This has truly been the hardest thing our family has ever had to handle.

We are coming up on the holidays again and Gabriel’s 3^rd birthday, and we are saddened to not have him here with us. Last year we decided to start a tradition in his memory. We want to put our hearts and minds in the right place through the holiday season and give back in his name on his birthday. Gabriel loved looking at books. Sometimes I’d find him sitting quietly in the front room just looking through his many board books. He especially loved the board books with the textured surfaces on each page.

We would like to ask for help collecting books for all ages of children. They will be donated to Portnuef Medical Center, Bingham Memorial & Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center ‘s Pediatric Floors on January 26, 2012 in memory of Gabriel. We will start collecting books on Monday, November 21, 2011 and would love to have them all collected by January 25, 2012. We’d like to give a big thanks to the businesses who have offered to be drop off points, Idaho State Journal for helping us spread the word, and Nitro Graphics for printing and donating flyers for Sonic Drive-in and Honks One Dollar to send out with their customers.

We have several drop off places for your convenience.

· Farm Bureau office 301 S. 4^th Ave. & 275 Tierra Dr.

· Sonic Drive In 710 Yellowstone Ave. (Bring in a children’s new or like new book and get a free drink)

· Honks Dollar Store 720 Yellowstone

· Highland High School 1800 Bench Rd.

· Stalker Elementary (in library) 991 W. Center St. Blackfoot

· Stoddard Elementary (in library) 460 York Dr. Blackfoot

The children who are at Portnuef Medical, Bingham Memorial & Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center will love to have these books as they spend time on the pediatric floors getting well. Just one of the amazing nurses at Portneuf Medical commented on how books from Gabriel has been helpful to patients of the pediatric floor. Shaunna Kramer says, “Every time I see a child's face light up after being gifted a book I think of Gabe and your family! I tell them it's from a special patient of mine that had a giving spirit! From a frantic mom being offered a moment of a nightly ritual, to a child being distracted away from a treatment there are many stories I can tell! What a precious gift of healing, books are! Entertaining, bonding, distracting, a getaway to their imagination! I had a teenage patient who had been in the hospital for a few days! She was nauseated and didn't want the TV on. So her mom read her to sleep with one of Gabes books! Her mom said that she hadn't done that since her daughter was little! It was sweet and I don't think it would have happened if there wasn't a book on hand! I gave a toddler "Goodnight Moon" (one of my very favorites), he took it to bed with him in the crib! I re-use the "Find Waldo" books for school aged children because it is very distracting and helps pass time! A lot of times parents do not know they are going to be admitted or are in such a rush to get their children to the hospital that they do not get to bring items from home! So offering them a book helps get the children settled and assists with keeping the nightly routine! I gave a book to one of our chronic babies and was pleased to see that on their return visit it was packed snug in the diaper bag with the edges worn!” Last year the book drive was great success and we would like to increase the number of donated books this year. We received 1500 books last year, which was more than we ever dreamed we would receive. This year we would like to invite you to help us reach our goal of 2000 new or like new books.

We are so grateful to all of you who are able to help with our birthday gift to Gabe by giving books to those children who are struggling with their own battles.
If you’d like more information about our family and about Gabriel, you may visit our blogs at http://da.savillefamily.org ,or if you want to make a donation to go towards new books for the book drive you can do that using a Paypal link at http://booksfromgabriel.blogspot.com/.