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Blogs by Paul Cuenco
It's Hector 12/27/2011 3:29:03 PM
I began to lounge in a chair next to my sister’s hospital bed when conversations started ensuing. Then Hector my sister’s boyfriend told us about his life in Juarez, Mexico. He was about eight or nine. He said that he loved to play but the kids he loved to play with were “strong” kids. You see he lived in a border town wherein folks over there were only there six months maybe a year, that was why the kids he came in contact with move on that quickly. And the kids who were “weak” tend to avoid him and move on. He befriended a boy wherein he loved to play rolling tops. This was a game wherein a string and a top were spun by throwing the top with a string and release; thus the top was spun. But his father prohibited the boy from playing until his chores were done. So in order for him to play with him, he had to help the boy so that they could play. He also met a girl but the girl needed to scrub the floor before he could play with her. So he helped her scrub the floor and when that was done, he was able to play with her.
He also told us the story about the singing birds, a nightingale. There was a canal in his town wherein the rapids were dangerous. People who fell into this canal got swept away. He was witness to it. By the next morning, he would read it in the newspaper that that individual would have drowned. There was a bird he saw on the tree by the canal. In order to catch that bird, he threw an adobe that grazed the bird. The bird fell into the canal and he jumped into it. He did not die, though. He was able to get the bird and save his life. Well, he didn’t know how he survived but he did. So, he went home and put the bird into a sack.
Before that, he mentioned that he went to church and after, he would linger among the stalls of the Mercado, the bazaar. He saw bird in the cage. This gave him an idea to put the bird he caught in the cage. The birds did not sing, though. When he had the bird, it gave him an idea after asking too many questions with the stall owner. After some time, he purchased a bird, but this did not come easy. He would point to the bird but the stall owner would constantly catch the wrong bird in the cage. When he got tired of it, he started walking away until the stall owner agreed to catch the right bird. So he got a singing bird.
There was a security guard in a farm from which he would like to hang the cage of his bird in order to attract other birds. But the security guard was adamant not to let him hang his cage. He was insistent, taking about three weeks to convince the security guard to do so. Soon, the security guard relented and there he hangs his cage. He caught a multitude of birds. The birds around the farm would listen to the bird sing and after a while, the bird will swoop in and check the singing bird out. It would swoop back out after checking the bird but then again would swoop back in. Soon, the bird got caught and there he has a bird.
Hector told this story in order to demonstrate how his thought pattern worked by observation, relentless pursuit, questioning and actually accomplishing his objectives.
It was late in the evening and it was time to go home. So I stood up and said my farewells and to him I said, “See you, Alfredo.” Alfredo was my sister’s former husband. I called him Alfredo without thinking who he really was. Then he replied, “Alfredo?” And I said, “Oh yes, Hector.” It’s Hector and not Alfredo!
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