When I was 5 years old, my father brought home a pigeon that couldn’t fly. Somehow my dad knew it was male, so we decided to name him Pompilio. That was the first time we rescued an animal, or at least the first one that I remember. My mom always says my dad brought many hurt animals before Pompilio, but I was too young to remember.

My father taught me how a broken wing looked like. It is usually lower than the other, sometimes you can see them drag it, depending on how serious it is; but that doesn’t always mean it is broken. A sprained wing is also a reason for a lower-dragging wing, this means that the ligaments are partially torn. Some say that a broken wing can never be fixed and that a sprained wing it is unlikely to heal perfectly, but I say that nothing is impossible.

Pompilio had a low wing, he clearly couldn’t fly, but luckily it was not broken. We kept him for a whole month. We let him rest and wrapped its wing with a roll of gauze to immobilize it so that he could fly again one day.

Pompilio’s wing healed perfectly fine and it was just like new. We let him fly around the house so he could get used to it again before going out the world. Until one day he went out of the window, and even though my father said he would come back, I thought I was never going to see him again

To my surprise, I saw Pompilio every day for six long years. And even though our little friend was healed in one month, he stayed for the rest of his life, and that was the moment I understood how grateful animals are. If you only open your eyes and look around you,you will realize that is not just us who house animals inside our homes, but that instead, they make a home for us human beings. Why? Well, because animals love unconditionally.