A few months before Gabriel was to be having his 2nd Birthday I was starting to stress out about the pain and grief that would come with a toddlers birthday and no toddler to celebrate. My mom reminded me that I should just try to stay busy, we tried to come up with something that we could do in his remembrance that might have an impact on our community. She then reminded me of how our Gabie would sit by the book shelf for hours and pull all the books off the shelf just to look through each one and then go and play. I'd of course clean up the book mess and laugh at my silly boy just in time for him to come and start over.
With this in mind I started to cry, remembering how Gabe was in this unfamiliar hospital room for 3 days and over that period of time I hadn't read one story to him. There were no books available in the PICU and so we just sat with him rubbing his sweet toes and fingers and telling him we loved him and we wanted him to come back to us. After this experience we decided that from now on we were going to strive to remedy this situation. We decided to put together what we now call Book from Gabriel. Books from Gabriel is a non-profit organization with the goal in mind to collect NEW and LIKE NEW books. We clean them, label them, and put them in age categories. We then deliver all the books to hospital pediatric floors. There the books will be put into the nurse staff's hands and used as needed. I have suggested for them to give away as many as they want to patients and or visitors of those patients. The books can also be used as a library and used over and over, however the hospital see's fit.
We are so pleased to be able to do this and it has brought us much joy during a time that otherwise would be unbearable. We know that our Gabriel is proud that on his Birthday we do a large service to children at as many hospitals as we have books to donate to.
Below are just a few of the sweet lives we've touched through our Angel Gabriel.
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