{"id":6345,"date":"2026-09-05T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/?p=6345"},"modified":"2026-09-18T09:56:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T12:56:16","slug":"hello-its-gabriel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/hello-its-gabriel\/","title":{"rendered":"Hello, it\u2019s Gabriel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hello, it\u2019s Gabriel.
You must know my grandpa.
You know\u2026 Papy Robert<\/strong>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This summer, he went away for a very long time.
Almost three weeks!<\/strong>
He left by bike from Belleville-en-Beaujolais, in France, and rode all the way to the sea, in Nice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

925 kilometres.<\/strong>
19,420 metres of climbing.<\/strong>
19 mountain passes.<\/strong>
I can\u2019t count that far yet\u2026 but I\u2019ve been told it\u2019s a lot, a lot, a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And most of all, he didn\u2019t leave just to ride a bike.
He left for me.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have an illness with a very complicated name: post-infectious bronchiolitis obliterans.<\/strong>
It means my little airways are damaged for life, that air sometimes struggles to get through, that all this makes me more vulnerable to viruses and that breathing takes more energy for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grandpa has an electric bike.
He says his electric assistance is a bit like my oxygen<\/strong>:
without it, he couldn\u2019t climb the passes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was told that on the climbs, when it got really hard, he talked to himself.
He\u2019d say, in French:
\u201cAllez mon petit Gabriel\u2026 allez Bibi\u2026 on y va ! On y croit !\u201d<\/strong>
(\u201cCome on my little Gabriel\u2026 come on Bibi\u2026 let\u2019s go! We believe!\u201d Bibi is my nickname.)<\/em>
And every time he reached the top of a pass, he\u2019d also say:
\u201cUn de plus dans la musette, mon Bibi !\u201d<\/strong>
(\u201cOne more in the musette, my Bibi!\u201d A musette is the little cloth bag riders are handed with food during a race. For Grandpa, every pass he conquered was one more thing tucked into the bag.)<\/em>
I think he must have filled quite a musette in those three weeks!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And me, while he was pedalling, I was thinking of him too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then he arrived in Nice.
My parents showed me pictures of his arrival.
There were even journalists and cameras who called us to talk about my story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the story didn\u2019t end in Nice!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following Tuesday, Grandpa took the train back to Belleville.
And there\u2026
SURPRISE!<\/strong>
He knew nothing.
He simply thought he was arriving at the station.
But on the platform, lots of people were waiting to congratulate him.
Friends, families, people who had followed his adventure\u2026
And apparently, when he stepped off the train, he had the face of a truly surprised grandpa!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The photos and videos of his return:<\/strong>
https:\/\/lescolsdusouffle.com\/retour-belleville<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I had something to give him too.
I made him a Super Grandpa of the Cols du Souffle diploma.<\/strong>
Because after 925 kilometres, 19 passes and 19,420 metres of climbing, I think he\u2019d earned it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And even after three weeks on the bike, Grandpa didn\u2019t take the car home.
He rode the last kilometre by bike, with his friend Thierry beside him, in flip-flops, like at home in Brazil.
Because let\u2019s be honest\u2026 one more kilometre wasn\u2019t going to scare him anymore!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when he got home, he ate blueberry pie.
A big slice.
Because he\u2019d earned that too!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now Grandpa is a bit tired.
He says it\u2019s because he\u2019s stopped eating energy gels.
I mostly think it\u2019s because he rode 925 kilometres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But most of all, something has changed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

During those three weeks, many people talked about my illness.
On television, on the radio, in the newspapers, in France\u2026
And even in Brazil, the country where my mum was born and where we live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before, almost nobody knew about my illness.<\/strong>
Now we\u2019re in touch with doctors, researchers and families in several countries.
Mum and Dad say it may be the most beautiful thing Grandpa brought back from his journey.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because I talk about me and my illness, but there are children all over the world who have the same one.
And since it\u2019s rare and incurable, research is still very limited.
There is still so much that doctors and researchers don\u2019t know\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if this adventure can help make the illness known, connect families and, one day, move research forward, then Grandpa really won\u2019t have pedalled for nothing.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, thank you<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Grandpa pedalled.
But he didn\u2019t do all this alone.
So I want to say thank you too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you to the businesses and shopkeepers<\/strong> from Grandpa\u2019s region who put their colours on his bike when, at the start, there was only an idea.
Thank you to the Region, the Department and the towns<\/strong> that welcomed him along the way.
Thank you to Cr\u00e9dit Agricole<\/strong> and its branches, who also rode with him.
Thank you to the hotels and families<\/strong> who gave him a bed during his sixteen stages.
Thank you to the journalists,<\/strong> in France and in Brazil, who took the time to listen to our story and tell it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you to everyone who came to cheer him on by the roadside<\/strong> or rode alongside him.
To those who followed his stages from far away, from Brazil or elsewhere, and shared them.
To those who donated.
To those I may have forgotten to name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And also\u2026
thank you to everyone who was on the station platform.<\/strong>
Grandpa really wasn\u2019t expecting it.
And I think that moment is one he\u2019ll never forget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what is all this for?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The money raised with the Cols du Souffle will help my charity, Hope For Gabriel.<\/strong>
A small part may go towards costs linked to my illness that my health insurance doesn\u2019t cover.
The rest will be kept by the charity to help families facing serious difficulties, like the ones we met last year, and to contribute to projects linked to research on my illness.
Because we truly hope that one day, doctors and researchers will find better solutions for children like me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And thanks to all the people we met during this adventure, we now have new contacts in several countries.
So Mum and Dad hope that with all this, we can move forward.
Feel less alone.<\/strong>
Find answers.<\/strong>
Find solutions.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And maybe one day I\u2019ll be able to have a more normal life, without being afraid all the time of catching a virus.
Most of all, I\u2019d like to do simple things.
See people without masks.
Visit my family in France, like my great-grandma Jeannine and my other grandpa, Christian.
Run without getting out of breath.
Play with friends.
And above all\u2026
ride a bike with Grandpa.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And after the ride, we\u2019ll ask Grandma Michelle to make us a blueberry pie, the way Grandpa likes them.
And then she\u2019ll sing me Les Marionnettes (a French nursery song)<\/em>, for real, not through a phone.
I still have so many things to discover, you know!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The adventure goes on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ll tell you what happens next.
Because Grandpa has finished his 925 kilometres\u2026
but I\u2019m carrying on along my own little path, where every day I need a little more breath to keep moving forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flying kisses (\u201cBisous volants\u201d, as we say in French)<\/em>,
Bibi<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PS: I can\u2019t write yet, so Dad held the keyboard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gabriel picks up the pen to tell the story of his Papy Robert\u2019s summer: 925 kilometres by bike, 19 mountain passes, a surprise welcome home, and a big thank you to everyone behind Les Cols du Souffle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memoirs-of-a-heros-dad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6353,"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6345\/revisions\/6353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}