Humming its way to a book A Point of View © 1996

Humming its way to a book
A Point of View © 1996

When one writes a memoir, only the momentous events meaningful to one’s life should get reported. They may not be significant to the reader, but they are to the author, and it is the author’s responsibility to make them relevant. And it always helps if the events make an impact, morally or intellectually, in the lives of the readers.

And it is not what makes us supermen or superwomen that qualifies those events for inclusion, it is what makes us superhuman. Supermen and superwomen are heavy lifters of iron, and their expressions are usually selfish or narcissistic. Superhumans are heavy lifters of human relationships and selfless value.

As I was writing my memoirs, many incidents showed up on my desk asking for an opportunity to be included. Many became lost under the pages of my draft or the keys of my word-processing keyboard. Yet, other stories sounded simple at first but became candidates in my history election cycle.

One of such stories had happened when I was young, eight or nine years old. A relative had come to visit us and spend a few days with our family and brought with him a hummingbird and its cage as a gift to me. I couldn’t be more elated. I had always treasured the humming songs of the bird and its independence, but my family had not given up on my frequent requests to own one. So, it was mana from heaven when I saw our relative walk through the door with the boisterous bird, and its jail, because jail it was.

We couldn’t keep it inside the house, which was out of the question. The best location turned out to be the small patio close to our living room. It was a safe place, not exposed to the elements, and we could decide when to listen to the opera singer that constantly celebrated life with his notes.

Days after the arrival of our new winged friend, my father and I stood by the cage and shared feelings and opinions about our new guest. “You know,” said my father, “When I watch that bird in the cage, it brings memories of my days imprisoned for my political activities.” I had heard of my father’s incarceration during the nineteen thirties when he was single and dedicated to the cause of freedom against one of the frequent Cuban dictatorships.

“Do you think that hummingbird knows the difference?” I asked. “Well, it may not know the difference, but it certainly would feel the difference,” he responded. “Why don’t we let it go to prove it?”

I hesitated for a moment, thinking that letting the bird go would put an end to my selfish joy of its singing, but then I responded: “OK, you let it go.” My father approached the cage and opened its door. The hummingbird wasn’t sure about what was going on, took a few steps around the cage, stood at the edge of the door, flew to a nearby sink and then shot up into the sky humming happily. We never saw it again, and neither did it see us. My father and I smiled, sharing a feeling of liberation that was only ours, a feeling that gave the story the pass it needed to be a chapter in my memoirs.

And now you know the rest of the story of this Point of View. So long.