[Piano music]
Judy: I've wasted weeks composing clever cover letters to you
describing the many reasons I need a monkey helper,
but you don't need to told how a trained monkey changes a life of an isolated wheelchair user.
Oh, I remember thinking, Oh, I know what it was,
I remembered thinking, sitting there in the office,
well of course that's what its like for most people,
but it won't be that bad for me.
It can't be that bad for me.
And it has been. Pretty much that bad.
George: Before we even got married, Jude had had some funny neurological kind of symptoms.
She had a numbness in her body that seemed odd.
Judy: We went on a very long walk in the Caribbean,
on Saint John, from the top of the mountain, all the way down to the beach.
The next day, I couldn't feel my legs at all.
I thought it was funny.
I remember saying to George: Hey George, can you beat that?! I can't feel my feet!
George: And... As everyone does when they're young
and have a twitch, they go: "well I hope that goes away quickly."
As it happened, very soon after we got married
she officially got diagnosed as having progressive MS
Judy: It was winter and George and I went out for a drive.
We went way out...
Way out into the field with black sky and a zillion stars
And, now, I don't think I've talked about this since then,
but I howled, because the doctor had made it sound like it turned out to be.
And so I howled and, and then after a certain time
I said, OK, that's enough. I can come home now.
George: Jude went from being a busy realtor and a runner
to slowly getting to the stage where she needed a cane.
I'm learning to accept that when you pass these markers, you're not going to see them again.
you've passed them forever.
This is a one way street.
And it's dawned on me in the last couple of years
that this is a fight that I cannot win.
Jude is gonna die of this disease
and there's not anything I can do about it.
I think the first time we heard about the monkey
was in a magazine article.
So in an idle moment she went on the internet
and looked up monkeys, helpers and came up with these people in Boston.
And the website said something about:
if you would like a monkey, send us an e-mail.
And I think in our minds we thought nothing would ever come of it.
And about three days later we got an e-mail back
Megan Talbert: Judy sent a letter initially that really did strike us as being really unique.
Really from the heart.
It made us laugh.
It made us want to know more about her.
Helping Hands has learned over the last 32 years what works
and how we can build a relationship
between a service animal and a recipient.
We've taken the time and the energy to build this process
because we know how important it is.
Woman with Monkey: Can you go fetch? Atta girl, Daisy! Atta Girl!
Megan Talbert: We all run around this world going a hundred miles an hour,
but the people that we help are adults
who have had that ability taken from them.
And to be able to give that gift back,
even if it's in the form of a six pound monkey helping,
that partnership that we have seen again and again,
that is what makes Helping Hands work.
George: Jude is immobile in her chair
and if she goes for the phone
and it slips out of her hands
and hits the floor, it's 18 inches away
and it might as well be 18 miles away.
So we went: "Wow, if this monkey could pick up the phone, that would be terrific.
Megan Talbert: One of the things that Judy was looking for was a monkey
that would be able to fetch objects off of the floor, off of a shelf.
Really what the monkeys learn over time is to anticipate their recipient's needs.
For example, something as simple as
walking into a dark room and flipping on a light switch is impossible for Judy.
Sophie's able to fill that void.
Judy: I had kind of a not much life.
And then Sophie came and it became,
that's what I wanted to do was hang out with that monkey.
I think I'm her prize person
when I go in the room she makes more fuss over me
and I love that!
George: She was sitting in Jude's lap the other day
and Jude was sort of mindlessly stroking her and stopped.
And Sophie reached out her small black hand and grabbed Jude's hand
and dragged it back because it was clear that she wasn't done being stroked.
Everybody lit up.
It was a great moment.
As it happened she's been with us for a year today.
It's her anniversary.
And I don't know how I could have gotten through
this year without her.
Megan Talbert: One of the things that's very important
to a lot of our recipients, is that their monkey doesn't see them as disabled.
They don't recognize the things that they're unable to do.
Their monkey sees their recipient as protector,
As alpha. And that's really important.
It's a really important gift the monkeys give to
somebody who has had so much taken away from them.
Judy: Some of my friends said "You got a monkey?!
What did you get a monkey for...What are you gonna do with a monkey?!"
I said: well, how have I lived so long without a monkey?
Is really the question.
I've come to find out I was right.
She's really cool.
[Guitar music]