Mud Season.. A Tribute to My Family

People often ask me what it was like the moment I first met Cate. I tell them about the crowded civil affairs office, the crying, the confusion, the joy. But in my mind, in that first moment, that first moment when her nanny looked at me and smiled and handed me my daughter, there is silence. It is the silence of the world ceasing to exist all around me. The silence of everything coming together into one moment. It is the silence I imagine of perfect meditation. The silence of existing fully in one moment.

I recall the same silence immediately after Alex was born. All around me were sounds. Steve talking. The nurse talking. The midwife talking. Hospital sounds. Then Alex was born and handed immediately to me. There was profound silence in that moment that I first held him in my arms. It seemed eternal, but could only have lasted a second or two and only when I heard the midwife saying, "It's a boy!" did I recall I didn't know that already.

The silence with Cate was there and then it was gone, broken by her stiffening body and overwhelming tears. In my memory, her sadness is matched by the look of kindness on the face of her caregiver, a peacefulness I tried to drink in. And then that woman was gone. I never even asked her name.

And now it is a year later. There is no silence if Cate is involved. She follows me everywhere, a chattering shadow, asking, "Mom? What doing?" I answer. My response immediately followed by, "Why?" I learned with Alex and am relearning with Cate, there is something existential in this line of questioning. Eventually, there is a "Why?" to which there is no answer and seeking an answer borders on the sharp corner of science, philosophy and faith.

It has been a year of such transition in our family. Moments of extreme joy. Moments of such difficulty. Cate has learned to navigate life within a family. Alex has gone off to kindergarten and learned to navigate life in an institution and Steve and I have tried to navigate our lives without ending up in institutions.

We marked our one year anniversary as a family with homemade pizza, two balloons and two 19 cent furry chicks from the florist. We talked about our memories of our first day together and Alex and Cate ended their day by lying together in our bed and watching "The Laurie Berkner Band." It couldn't have been better. On their first day as brother and sister, they lay together on a bed in Nanjing, eating noodles and watching the same video.

I didn't realize that simple event would be enough... I thought we needed something more to mark our year together as a family, and so I booked one night at an indoor water park/ hotel. I see now, we didn't need the extravagance, but in a way the trip was a brief summary of our life - not as quiet strangers, but as a family.

The trip began with the bickering of the kids in the car. Their fights are as classic as they are annoying. They always start along these lines... "Cate's looking at me!" "No," Ala looking at ME!" and it goes downhill from there.

But at the hotel, they decided to try sleeping together on the pullout couch. I didn't expect much. I tucked them in, turned out the light and waited for, "Cate touched me!" "No, Ala touched me!"

But it didn't happen. I sat in the dark and listened to them whispering back and forth to each other - each making sure the other was there in the dark. It lasted only a few minutes before Alex crawled to our bed and Cate followed shortly after, but it was a moment to remember. It was what I had wanted for them - a friendship, a companionship, each knowing the other was there.

I could write much more about the water park, and in another post, I might... Observations of This American Life... or something like that...

In the meantime, I learned a lesson... every day is a celebration of our family. Even the bickering - it would only happen in a family. We had a beautiful dinner with family and friends to celebrate our wonderful occasion. We had a quiet dinner alone. And it was enough. The celebration is all around us - sometimes so obvious and beautiful, other times marked in struggle and frustration.

It was pouring rain the day after our Family Day. I dug out Cate's hand-me-down boots, her hand-me-down coat. She threw the warm clothes I chose to the side and insisted on "being fancy" that day. I dragged her from the gym, to an interview, and all about town. She, in the pigtails she demands each day, was the only non-mud colored thing anywhere to be seen. And she drew smiles every place she went. She was so Cate. Outgoing. Waving at everyone she met. Dressed in layers and layers of clothing lovingly handed down to her by people who had waited anxiously for her to arrive. She has been so embraced. And she returns the love with bobbing pigtails and waving hands, a welcome splash of color in all our lives.