The following true stories suggest that we do not give our animal friends sufficient credit as to their intelligence, loyalty and devotion. Some scoff at animals having or showing emotion. I believe that they do have feelings and often very deep, including love for each other and humans that are special to them.

Apparently they can connect with us in ways that are yet unknown. I felt these true stories were particularly appropriate for Valentine’s Day. A long time friend emailed the first story to me; the second is a personal story.

Freedom and Jeff
Freedom, a Bald Eagle and a man named Jeff have been together 11 years this past summer. Freedom came into the animal rescue center as a baby in 1998 with two broken wings. Her left wing didn’t open all the way even after surgery. It was broken in four places. She soon became his baby to care for.

When Freedom came in, she could not stand and both wings were broken. She was emaciated and covered in lice. Staff made the decision to give her a chance at life, so Jeff took her to the vet’s office. From then on, he was always around her. The center kept her in a huge dog carrier with the top off, and it was loaded up with shredded newspaper for her to lie in. Jeff used to sit and talk to her, urging her to live, to fight; and she would just lay there looking at him with those big brown eyes. They also had to tube-feed her for weeks.

This went on for four to six weeks. Still she couldn't stand. It progressed to the point where staff made the decision to euthanize her if she couldn't stand in a week. They didn’t want to cross that line between torture and rehab, and it looked like death was winning. She was going to be put down that Friday, and Jeff was supposed to come in that Thursday afternoon.

He didn't want to go to the center that fateful day, because he couldn't bear the thought of her being euthanized; but he went anyway. When he walked in, everyone was grinning from ear to ear. He immediately walked back to her cage; and there she was, standing on her own, a big beautiful eagle. She was ready to live! Seeing her standing, he “teared up.”

Staff knew she could never fly, so the director asked Jeff to glove train her. He got her used to the glove, and then to the jess, and they started doing educational programs for schools in Western Washington. The story wound up in the newspapers, radio (believe it or not) and some TV.

In the spring of 2000, Jeff was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He had Stage Three, which is not good (one major organ plus everywhere), so he wound up doing eight months of chemo. He lost his hair—the whole bit. He missed a lot of work. When he felt good enough, he would go to the center and take Freedom out for walks. He said that Freedom would also come to him in his dreams and help him fight the cancer. This happened time and time again.

Fast forward to November 2000, the day after Thanksgiving. Jeff went in for his last checkup. He was told that if the cancer was not all gone after eight rounds of chemo, then his last option was a stem cell transplant. Anyway, they did the tests; and he had to come back Monday for the results. When he went in that day, the doctors told him that all the cancer was gone.

The first thing he did was go up to the center and take the big girl out for a walk. It was misty and cold. He went to her flight and jessed her up, and they went out front to the top of the hill. He hadn't said a word to Freedom about his great news, but somehow she knew.

She looked at him and wrapped both her wings around him to where he could feel them pressing in on his back. He was engulfed in eagle wings, and she touched his nose with her beak and stared into his eyes. They stood there like that for he couldn’t remember how long. It was a magic moment. He felt that they had become soul mates ever since she came into the center. He had to feel that this was one incredibly special bird.

On a side note Jeff wanted to add something else. He said that people who were sick came up to them while they were out walking, and Freedom seemed to have some kind of hold on them. Once a guy who was terminal come up to them, and Jeff let him hold Freedom. His knees just about buckled, and he swore he could feel her power rush through his body. He was told many stories like that.

Jeff ended his story with the realization that he would never forget the honor of being so close to such a magnificent spirit as Freedom.

Jim and “Patches”
This story is about my late nephew who years ago found an abandoned female kitten along a rural highway. Jim knew that she was too young to survive without his rescuing her, so took her home (much to his wife's disapproval). She did not like cats and told him he would have to feed the kitten—she would have no part of it!

He named his little adopted calico bundle of fur, Patches and from the first evening, she welcomed Jim home every night when he came through the front door. First he fed her. When she had finished eating, she would follow him most of the evening, purring and occasionally rubbing against his leg.

A few months later, he and his wife divorced, and she left the house. Jim and the fast-growing kitten were with each other more then. After feeding her, Jim would fix his own dinner followed by sitting in his recliner to watch TV. She jumped up in his lap to be closer to him. But Patches did not have her six-foot brown-eyed curly black-haired friend to herself for long. He remarried and soon the family grew to include two daughters.

Patches now gained a new status in the house, respected and loved by his second wife and young daughters. Jim was promoted to manager of his large employer’s computer department, and the new job entailed considerable travel. Feeding the cat each evening now became the task of the two girls until he returned home. But Patches moped when he was gone, picked at her food and seemed only content when snoozing in his chair, her favorite resting place.

Her keen sense of hearing enabled her to know ahead of the others that it was his car pulling into the drive and she instantly came alive from where ever she happened to be. She ran to the door to be first in line to greet him. Jim never failed to pick her up and ask, “How’s my Patches?” He would then hug her and brush her body of soft fur against his face and she would “talk” as if to tell him that she had missed him and glad he was back. For the next several years, she continued to welcome Jim home each night and watch TV with him, curled up on his lap.

One late cold November evening she jumped upon his lap but instead of laying down and curling up, she began to lick his left temple. He didn't have the heart to pull her away even though it was a bit annoying. Every night she gently licked the same spot. Her behavior soon became a joke to the extended family, neighbors and visitors with remarks like, “Look at that crazy cat—licking Jim’s face.” But the cat seemed to know what she was doing.

In January Jim began to have excruciating pain in the area of his left temple. After a few days he went to the doctor who diagnosed the pain as a brain tumor. Tests were taken and biopsies showed it was malignant. He declined chemotherapy and radiation. He had always been a healthy young man. He accepted the fact his condition was terminal and he wanted to be as comfortable as he could until the end.

Too soon he became bedridden, and Patches stayed with him in bed all day and night, never failing to lick his temple off and on. She left his sickbed only to eat half-heartedly and go outside briefly—she had been house-trained to go outdoors. Upon reentering, she would trot quickly—tail waving proudly-- to her self-appointed post.

The tumor progressed very fast, and Jim’s strength began to fade. But his friend remained with him, lying at his side day after day, night after night still licking his temple. His wife and visitors asked him if he would be more comfortable if the cat were removed from his bed. He emphatically declined the offers stating, “No, I want her there. I believe she is trying to heal the tumor.”

One night about eleven, the cat let out a very loud scream, jumped off the bed and ran to the front door meowing even louder, insisting on going outside. She was acting in a way that Jim’s wife and daughters had never heard or seen Patches do before. Jim’s wife responded to her urgent cries and opened the door to let her out into the dark night but sensing something was seriously wrong, rushed to his bedroom. There she found Jim had passed away.

Patches never returned to the house. No one ever saw her again.