Fermín taught us to fly

We lived in a small apartment, the four of us: my mom, my dad, my brother, and me.
My mom worked at the hospital in Facatativá… sometimes up to 24 hours straight.
My brother, who is very special, has always looked after me, always been by my side — but he also loves playing football with his friends. He supports Santa Fe and, whenever he can, he heads to the neighborhood pitch.
My dad is special too: he tells me stories, he listens, and when I ask him for something from the heart, he almost always says yes.

We loved each other deeply, but we barely saw each other… a beautiful family, just with no time.

Señora Carmen lived in 503; I lived in 501. When I got home from school, I would stop by her apartment to say hello, do homework, and visit her parrot, Fermín — named after her late husband.

She used to say he talked too much, which is why she called him Fermín. She told me things about her life, her memories, and she told me I was like a granddaughter to her. Her children never came… they lived far away and called her sometimes.

I talked with her, but mostly with Fermín.
He listened… he made me laugh… it was as if he knew when I was sad.

I had a game with Fermín: I would tell him to close his eyes and imagine he was free — flying high, in a vast place full of wind… to feel it so it would come true. Fermín almost never closed his eyes, but I did, and I pictured myself running across an enormous field while he circled above me like a green kite.

The day God made parrots, he must have had a lot of green paint left over…

One day señora Carmen fell ill; we were told… we called the ambulance. They took her away, and two days later I was told she had died. I cried a lot. I thought someone would take Fermín, but nobody wanted to.

How sad, I thought — her children never visited doña Carmen, and now they don't even want Fermín.

I begged my dad to bring him home: "Don't leave him alone, the way they left her."
At first he said there was no room, but my mom, in the end, said yes.

That is how Fermín came to live with us. We kept him in his cage because we didn't know what else to do. I looked after him, talked to him, sang to him… but he was very sad: he pulled out his feathers, wouldn't eat, wouldn't move.

One afternoon I stood at the window and looked out at the other apartments… and I understood that we were all shut in. Every window was a cage: a grandfather with a vacant stare, a woman pacing without stopping, a man who left before dawn and came back at night, children like us… all little birds wanting to be free.

I asked my dad for a plan: "We need a place where Fermín can fly… where we can breathe differently too." After asking a thousand times, one day I found a moving truck at the door: we were moving to the Tisquesusá neighborhood, with a yard bigger than the apartment, feijoa trees, wind, and open sky.

The first thing I did was open the cage… Fermín flew. He went to the trees and, after a while, came back. He slept in my room; the cage was his bed… it was never closed again.

Life changed: mom kept working long hours, but everything felt different; my parents spoke to each other more gently; my brother played football in the yard and Santa Fe won another title; I no longer felt alone.

For years I thought we had rescued Fermín… I saw myself as a good girl, imagining señora Carmen smiling down from heaven. But over time I understood:

We didn't save Fermín from being alone… we didn't give him a home… we didn't give him freedom.

Fermín saved us from loneliness, gave us a home… he came to set us free.

Because when Fermín was free, his joy, his flights, and the fearless way he always returned pulled us out of our own cage.

Now, every night, I tell him:
— Close your eyes… imagine you are with other parrots, that you have a whole family… dream that you fly with no cages, no bars.

He looks at me… he doesn't always close his eyes.
But I do.
And every time I close mine, something remarkable happens: I understand that we are all prisoners… until we decide to fly… and help others out of their own cages.

Analysis and reflections from Fundación Loros

Fermín's story begins with an improvised rescue and ends in a lesson about shared freedom. The good appears immediately: a girl sees abandonment, steps in, and convinces her family to take in the parrot. That spontaneous act of empathy keeps Fermín from being forgotten and, at the same time, opens a crack in the routine of a scattered household. When they move to the Tisquesusá neighborhood — a wide yard, trees, open sky — everyone discovers that the wellbeing of a bird can transform human dynamics: mom keeps working, but the atmosphere softens; dad talks more; the brother finds room to play; the girl stops feeling alone. The open cage becomes a daily symbol of trust: Fermín flies away, comes back, and through his example teaches that genuine bonds need no bars.

The bad lies in the origin: señora Carmen's loneliness and her children's indifference show how urban isolation traps people and animals alike. The move itself, though well-intentioned, temporarily recreates another cage and overlooks the option of a professional rehabilitation center. Yet the story redirects that mistake: by opening the gate, the family understands that real rescue means giving space — and stepping out of their own invisible prison of habit and hurry.