MEXICO CITY (CN) — Gucci came to Catia Lattouf at a critical moment in her life.
An animal rescue organization brought the injured hummingbird to Lattouf not long after she had outlived doctors’ predictions that she had just two months left.
“This was in 2012, and I was still scared that the cancer would come back, because it hadn’t even been two years,” the 73-year-old Lattouf said, sitting in a bedroom of her third-floor apartment in the bosky, upscale neighborhood of Polanco.
“There always remains some doubt, as the doctors say it could reappear,” she said as dozens of hummingbirds hovered overhead, darting across the room to perch on houseplants, family photos and the television bolted to the wall.
Depressed and scared, Lattouf resisted getting too close to Gucci at first. But, despite having lost an eye, the little guy was determined to pull her out of her funk. He posted up in front of her computer screen and stared her down until she gave in and started to play with him.
“He was my emotional medicine,” Lattouf said.
The two formed a bond that lasted exactly nine months. Not one to discredit the miraculous, Lattouf saw a sign in Gucci’s short time with her: “Rebirth. He gave me a new life.”
Although her home had served as an amateur bird sanctuary for years, she was initially worried about being able to meet the specific needs of hummingbirds. But since then, through trial and error, Lattouf has rescued and released hundreds of hummingbirds and worked to raise awareness of their ecological importance.
Hummingbirds are a critical link in the food web in the Americas and pollinate a diverse range of flowering plants from Alaska to the tip of South America, according to the conservation organization Pollinator Partnership. Many of those plants have uniquely adapted to rely on them for fertilization.
Mexican media outlets flocked to Lattouf after a TikTok video of her work went viral in April. It now has over 1.6 million views, and Lattouf finds herself balancing a busy schedule of hummingbird rehabilitation and cancer patient life-coaching — which she does pro bono — with swarms of reporters eager to hear her inspiring story.
Lattouf only jokingly laments her newfound fame. It has become part of the mission she took on when Gucci gave her a new lease on life.
People come to her from all over the Valley of Mexico and surrounding states to bring the injured or mistreated hummingbirds they find, and Lattouf enjoys including them in the recovery process. She sends them updates and photos of the birds’ progress and invites them to attend the release of those who recover well enough to be returned or introduced to the wild.
“I want them to come and applaud their recovery and say goodbye,” she said. “There is a human satisfaction in tying and relating hummingbirds to people. It’s like making them aware of their humanity.”
Many of the birds brought to her have been mistreated as pets, a practice Lattouf disdains.
She cites pre-Hispanic lore to illustrate her opposition to keeping hummingbirds in cages: myths that the birds collect souls as they pass from flower to flower — or that a visit from one can mean it has come to tell you that the soul of a dead loved one has finally found peace.
“The legends about the hummingbird are so lovely,” she said. “It was always a sacred bird to the Maya. Their gods carved it from a jade arrow, the legend says, and when they saw people trying to trap them, they came down and said, ‘Whoever puts a hummingbird in a cage will be cursed for the rest of their life.’”
Not all rescue stories, however, have such happy endings. Lattouf's apartment is both hospital and hospice, and she strives to make their final days as comfortable as possible before they go.
Of the nearly 50 birds in her bedroom during the interview, about a dozen suffered from infections like fowlpox or candidiasis and would not recover.
“I cry a lot, I hug them,” she said. “But there is a mystery to their passing.”
A story of loss from the previous day encapsulates the enigma. Lattouf left for lunch knowing that one of her patients that had been attacked by a cat was not doing well.
“She waited for me, and when I returned, I picked her up and she looked at me as though to thank me. And then she moved on, there in my hand,” she said. “None of them move on without saying goodbye.”
In all her years of rescuing hummingbirds, Lattouf said, not one of them has died overnight or while she was out. They all wait to see her one last time.
“I don’t know God’s will or what he does,” she said. “The disabled ones who are always together, who sleep together — when one moves on, the other does the same very next day.”
Lattouf plans to establish a foundation to continue her work. She knows not everyone is fortunate enough to do it without receiving a paycheck, so she hopes to create a charitable institution that can employ biologists and others to care for the hummingbirds.
She has teamed up with a similar organization in Mexico City called Terraza Colibrí, Hummingbird Terrace in English, which serves as the release site for rescued birds. She has also received funding from the mezcal brand Trascendente, which features the refulgent pollinator as its logo, to help start the foundation.
Lattouf intends to run the organization with the same guiding philosophy of her work with people with cancer.
“In this life, you come across people who need a kind word, a smile, a hug, five minutes of your time or even economic help to make them understand that they are important. Don’t turn your back on them so that this human chain we are making remains in place.”
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