Gabe Adams was just an infant when he was abandoned by his mother at a hospital in Brazil. It was only when nurses lifted his blanket that they realized that he had been born without his arms or legs…

After Gabe was placed in an orphanage, his story was brought to the attention of Janelle Adams, a Utah mother of 13 children. As soon as she saw his photo, she said to herself, “I’d take him in a second.”

Janelle’s family ended up adopting Gabe and bringing him to Utah to live with them! A staffer at Shriner’s Hospital for Children in Salt Lake City remembers the first time he saw Gabe rolling down the hallway of the facility.

“I thought someone dropped a football! I went to pick it up… and it was Gabe!” the employee recalled.

Gabe has grown up with lots of love and support from his family, and he has never let his disability hold him back in life!

“I kept wondering, ‘How would I feed him? How would I dress him? How would we teach him to walk?’” Janelle said of her initial concerns. “It felt right. Bringing him to Utah with us was just something we were supposed to do.”

In an article that he wrote for The Huffington Post, Gabe credited his parents for helping to make him independent by teaching him to eat, write, walk up stairs, swim, and jump off the diving board.

“They helped me see myself as a normal boy who could find independence,” he wrote. “I just needed a different approach to accomplish things.”

Though it took Gabe a long time to learn to walk, he is now more comfortable doing that than using a wheelchair. On top of that, Gabe has even learned to dance!

“I’ve just always wanted to be something more than the kid in the wheelchair,” he said. “I feel a freedom whenever I dance. Nothing else comes close to it.”

Gabe’s story serves as a reminder that we should never let anything hold us back in life! Watch Gabe dance in the video below, and SHARE this story so your friends and family can see this as well!