The Hummingbird That Brought Us Hope

Not long ago, a close friend of mine shared a story that deeply touched me — a quiet yet profound moment that unfolded in the midst of a family's pain. Her husband had been diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer. As you can imagine, each day passed like a heavy cloud over the household. There were long silences. Short breaths. An overwhelming sense of helplessness. The kind that seeps into the wallpaper and lingers in the corners of every room. Then something remarkable happened. One morning, as the wife was walking slowly through their backyard garden, trying to ground herself in the colours and smells of September, a hummingbird darted into view. It zipped around briefly before — to her surprise — flying directly through an open window into their living room. Panic and awe mixed in equal parts. She didn’t want to startle it. She didn’t want to trap it. So gently, she picked up a long stick and slowly extended it towards the tiny creature. What happened next was nothing short of magical: the hummingbird calmly perched itself on the very tip of the stick. With slow steps, she walked back out the window and released it into the open air. The hummingbird hovered briefly, then disappeared in a shimmer. That evening, the family gathered around the dinner table — not in tears, but in quiet reflection. Someone recalled something they had once read: "A hummingbird dies if it stops flapping its wings." Whether it was true or not didn’t seem to matter in that moment. The metaphor landed hard. They began to talk — not about death, but about motion. About resilience. About keeping the wings going, even when it hurts. Even just for one more day. For a few days after that, the sadness was still there — but it had shifted. It was now wrapped in something lighter, something that looked, perhaps, like hope. What Hummingbirds Can Teach Us There’s a popular belief that hummingbirds die if they stop flying. While this isn’t entirely true, it’s rooted in something fascinating about these incredible birds. Hummingbirds have one of the highest metabolisms in the animal kingdom. Their tiny hearts can beat more than 1,200 times per minute, and their wings flap between 50 to 80 times per second. Because of this, they must constantly feed on nectar to fuel their energy. But they can rest. In fact, hummingbirds enter a state called torpor, a deep, sleep-like state where their metabolism slows dramatically to conserve energy — especially during cold nights. So no, they don't instantly die if they stop flying. But they do have to balance motion and rest with incredible precision. To me, that mirrors life with illness, grief, or uncertainty. You can't go full-speed all the time. But you can’t give up motion entirely either. There’s a rhythm to survival. The Painting Behind the Story After hearing this story, I couldn’t shake the image of that tiny bird — or the emotional wings it left behind in that home. I sat down with my paints and began to sketch. But I didn’t want to paint the hummingbird as it is. I wanted to paint it as I felt it. So, I gave it enormous wings — not for realism, but for symbolism. To me, those large wings represent the emotional labour of staying alive, staying hopeful, and staying connected, especially when everything feels like it's falling apart. I used watercolour to keep the atmosphere dreamlike and ethereal. I added hints of red — not just for beauty, but to symbolize the intensity of life, of blood, of breath, of love, and even of fear. Caption: “'Wings of Hope' – a visual tribute to the unseen strength it takes to keep going.”