Today is April 7, 2025, my 31st birthday, and I just received from my girlfriend the announcement of a beautiful gift: a birdwatching tour. People look at me and find it strange; a shy smile appears on their faces, and only the boldest ones—the ones who know me the least—dare to ask:
—What kind of gift is that?
Well, that gift is everything, and I’ll explain why.
When María Greisy Cariney and I met, after a break in which we swore we’d never see each other again, we reunited to travel to a nearby town and watch hummingbirds. Those two hours awakened something in me so powerful that it changed me. Today, the garden at my parents’ house is a magical place, full of vervain, shrimp plants, lantern flowers, and other blossoms that feed small hummingbirds and butterflies.
The special thing about stories is that they let us travel through time, and many years ago, quite literally by accident, a little parrot came into my life.
It was 2002, the day former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez took office. I think a few fireworks went off in the sky, but I don’t remember clearly; what I do recall is that afterward, the streets went completely silent—you couldn’t hear even a motorcycle. Everyone was watching the speech on TV. There was no TikTok, no YouTube, and definitely no WhatsApp in our lives like there is today.
A loud bang broke the silence against the window, leaving a hole that to this day is patched with a piece of plastic. A dad, a mom, a 12-year-old girl, and me—an 8-year-old boy—had to pull ourselves away from the screen to see what happened. What we found was that a small parrotlet, mid-flight, had collided—rather poorly—with our house.
She was lying in the garden, injured but proud. Even though her little beak was full of blood, she still had strength—and not a little—to bite. My dad found that out the hard way when he tried to pick her up and ended up with several punctures on his skin. We had to bring out the yellow leather glove electricians use: only then could he grab her to clean and treat her. We saw him as a hero. Now Lulú, the parrotlet, had a new home: our backyard.
At first, she hated us. Just getting close would trigger an attack, or she’d snatch away the soda cracker pieces we offered. When she saw the yellow glove, she knew what was coming: some antibiotic cream on her beak and little feet. She clearly disliked it, but her stillness told us she understood it was for her own good.
Our family menu started to include bananas and sunflower seeds. Although to our eyes, she seemed to love the crackers, we found out that they were only good bird food in the movies—like Paulie, the talking parrot. That bird, though clever, got into all sorts of trouble thanks to his trust in humans: acting as a detective, a jewel thief, even a mariachi.
To our surprise, she wasn’t into sunflower seeds that much, and though she liked banana, her favorites were figs—one of the most expensive and rare fruits in Medellín. They say the way to the heart is through the stomach, and that was our case: only then did she begin to love us.
First, she stopped hiding and biting us. Then she let us feed her by hand and clean her little den without enduring a stinky protest. The next step was venturing into the house, walking through every corner and leaving muddy prints all over the floor. Then came the moment that filled us with joy: she began to climb up our clothes with her little feet and beak until she reached our shoulders, where she would rest or fall asleep. She also climbed onto our index finger when, too lazy to walk, she wanted a ride. Finally, as a sign of acceptance, friendship—and we like to think love—she filled our fingers with kisses every chance she got. With tongue, which isn’t the same thing—you can imagine.
Lulú was a free being, as much as a bird in captivity can be. We never clipped her wings or kept her in a cage. She wasn’t punished—just visited and pampered. Her little den was the cave under the laundry sink, and her playground, the clothesline. A large patio, but one surrounded by tall adobe walls that had nothing to do with the trees of the mountains in my city. In short, our home was her home; she even went upstairs to the second floor to join us watching TV.
Every story has an ending, and ours, as life rules dictate, is no exception. A hot, sunny day arrived. She had been with us for just over two years, and her wild instincts—the ones that once made her resist the yellow glove and our fingers—had faded. Lulú was our pet. She was, until a few days before, when she discovered she could jump: first long distances, then higher and higher. That morning, she got up early to practice. She jumped to the clothesline and then to the roof, always looking back at us, calling with her eyes, only to turn around and do it again. This went on for a while until she reached the highest wall. She stood there for a few minutes, singing like never before. She looked at us, said goodbye, and took off flying.
At ten years old—thirteen for my sister—we discovered that emotions can mix and create entirely new feelings. We learned that letting go of someone you love is so hard it wrinkles your heart and tightens your throat, yet fills you with joy because you know they’ve regained their freedom.
In the days that followed, after school, we waited in the yard hoping she’d return, even just for a visit; she never did. All we have left of Lulú is a photo on a roll of film that, when we tried to develop it 20 years later, couldn’t be recovered; the story we always tell when people ask where our love for nature comes from; the time we shared, creating memories we cherish with our parents; and a flock of parrots, parakeets, honeycreepers, wrens, and other birds that visit the almond tree Don Pascual planted more than 70 years ago and that we all refuse to cut down. But that’s another story—let’s save it for late