Animal Stories
Story of the Week, July 31, 2009, Angel in the Army
Dennis Fredrickson of Culver City, California, was drafted into the military during the Vietnam War, and like many servicemen and women, he believes in small miracles. When you’ve come that close to death, veterans say, it’s easy to recognize the hand of God.
In fact, Dennis believes that the first miracle he received during this time [...]
Sweet Messengers
Christmas was still a long was off when Lori Poczekaj’s father became ill. Her mother rented a wheelchair and insisted on caring for him at home. “Dad was still very energetic,” Lori says. “We hoped he would have the strength to get well and spend many more holidays with us.”
Lori’s father had built the house [...]
Monarch in the House
Two months after twenty-one-year-old Desiree Revel passed away, her mother bought a small townhouse. It took a few weeks for her to unpack and organize everything in her new home. “I was living alone now, yet it was important to me that I set up Desi’s things in a special room,” Virginia Revel says. “I [...]
Looking for Ryan
It was after eleven p.m. when Patti and Dan Burnett, members of the Summit County, Colorado, Search and Rescue team, received the phone call.
Ryan, a sixteen-year-old boy had become separated from his father that morning while grouse-hunting. Now he was lost in a wilderness area high in the Rocky Mountains, wearing only jeans and a [...]
God’s Pet Care
Renee Dotson was running uncharacteristically late as she rounded up her children for their tae kwando lessons. Their Plano, Texas home featured a six-foot-tall privacy fence around the back yard, and Renee had forgotten that the family’s miniature Schnauzer, Lucky, was still out there. (Usually they brought him in when everyone left at [...]
Doves for Diane
The last days of summer and the first days of fall are some of Oregon’s finest. In mid-October, 1998, on one of those days, Diane Harrington sat on a park bench at Waterfront Park in downtown Portland during her lunch break. Watching the reflections of the sun on the water, she spotted a white dove, [...]
Carl’s Deer
It was the day after her beloved brother’s unexpected death, and Susan didn’t know what to do. Carl had always said he wanted to be buried in the township cemetery that abutted his farmland property, so he could “keep an eye on things.” But no one had been buried there for twenty years, [...]
Can Angels Take the Form of Animals?
As we know, everyone who is in heaven is a saint. But there are also “official” saints, those recognized for all the good they did here on earth. One who couldn’t have succeeded without a particular heavenly helper was St. John Bosco, whose feast day we observed on January 31st.
John was born in Becchi, Italy [...]
Birds of Paradise
It was snowing in the cold Pennsylvania pre-dawn as Caryl Baum’s cab made its way to the airport for her flight. She was going to her goddaughter Kelly’s funeral in Tallahassee. The girl, whose heart had unexpectedly stopped after jogging, had been only 22, and Caryl was inconsolable at the loss. Somehow she [...]
Angel Cats
People say you either love cats or hate them. I’m a lover (although allergies have prevented me from owning one), and so are Gary and Sylvia Martin. In fact, they have several, and their particular favorite was an orange tabby named Sarah. “We had had fourteen wonderful years with Sarah,” Sylvia says. [...]
