Awakening to the Whisper by Cathy Crenshaw Doheny

Articles & Stories about Life in China

 

Awakening to the Whisper by Cathy Crenshaw Doheny

When I first taught my daughter about love, I spoke in Chinese. The last story had been read, and it was bedtime.

"Wo ai ni, Jade" I said. She giggled.

"What it means?" three-year old Jade asked, enjoying her reprieve from sleep time.

"When a person is really important in your life, you tell them how much you care about them by saying, 'Wo ai ni'. That is Chinese for 'I love you'."

"Like Mama say to Daddy?"

"Yes Sweetie, Mama and Daddy love each other, so we tell each other, sometimes in English and sometimes in Chinese. The important thing is that we tell each other how we feel."

"Wannie, Mama!" Jade proclaimed, as if she had just made a great discovery.

"Wo ai ni, Baby. It's time to go to sleep now. I'll see you in the morning," I said with a kiss on her soft forehead.

"Like Mama sing in China?" She asked, as I was half-way out the door.

"What, Sweetheart?" She was obviously trying to delay the inevitable.

"Like Mama sing to Baby Jade the first time."

"Oh, you mean when we first met?"

I had forgotten about my improvised song at the Civil Affairs Office in Changsha when my husband and I had first met Jade. She was almost two years old at the time, and was the oldest and most vocal child, in a room filled with other adoptive families meeting their babies for the first time. Kevin and I were a complete wreck, nervously waiting to finally meet our future daughter. The moment she saw our faces and realized who we were, she completely melted down, vehemently protesting the proceedings. We held her, offered her toys and candy, but nothing calmed her. Finally, Kevin suggested that I sing to her. I was a trained opera singer, but unfortunately, did not know any children's Chinese songs. So, I sang the first words that came to my mind, "Mama ai ni. Mama, mama ai ni", which translated to "Mama loves you. Mama, mama loves you." I managed to improvise a believable Eastern melody. It worked like a charm, and Jade quieted immediately.

"Sing again, Mama, pleeeeese?" She begged, more to keep me in the room that night, than to hear our special song.

"Okay, but then you must go to sleep. It's already past your bedtime." I sang the song several times, and finally tucked her in.

As I closed the door behind me, I was reminded of the end of that first day together in China. It had been a difficult, exhausting day, my first day of motherhood. Jade was resistant at first, but then decided she could trust her new mother. She clung desperately to me, as if I were her lifeline, screaming if I would let her out of my arms for even a moment.

That night, I placed her in the crib next to my neighboring bed, much to her protestations. I quickly lay on my bed facing her, with just the mesh side of the Chinese crib dividing us. I placed my hand on the black plastic, inviting her palm to join mine. We traced hearts and clouds, until she drifted off to sleep. I whispered, "Wo ai ni" to my beautiful new daughter, hoping that a corner of her consciousness was still awake to receive my message.

Every night of the next week and a half spent in China, I whispered my love to sleeping Jade. She would lie there, unchanged, her chest continuing to rise and fall with each breath. I kept looking for a sign that she knew I was her mother, that I was her protector, guide, and friend forever. But, I was disappointed to find that she appeared exactly the same after I said those words, as she did before. Still, I was devoted to my devotion. "Wo ai ni, precious Jade," I whispered through the air.

The last day of our China journey finally came. All of the families at the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou boarded buses headed to the US Consulate's office. Everyone was excited about the official swearing-in ceremony, which would enable our Chinese children to become US citizens upon arrival in the states. The room was packed with expectant families, as we all took our places to swear that all the paperwork we had submitted was truthful. We were given Jade's visa and told that we were now free to go home to the US. As the ceremony began, I looked down in my lap to find a sleeping Jade. "Should we wake her?" I asked Kevin.

"No, let her sleep. She'll understand all of this one day."

When it was over, Kevin and I hugged, and then kissed our peacefully napping daughter. We hurried outside to meet our driver, who promptly transported us to the airport for our flight back to Los Angeles. I held Jade close to my chest, as we made our way through crowds of Americans, thrilled to be headed home. We climbed into the van, and drove to the airport; Jade still asleep on my lap. "Wo ai ni, new daughter," I whispered.

As we neared our final Chinese destination, tears began to pour down my face, as I fully realized the magnitude of our good fortune. Our young Chinese guide looked me in the eye and said, "This child is so lucky to be yours. She will be an only child in an American family. She will lack for nothing."

"Especially love," I added. "We are the lucky ones. We had to go half-way around the world, but we managed to find the perfect child for our family. She's everything we had ever dreamed our daughter would be."

As our plane journeyed through the orphan air, I realized that sometimes it takes the innocence of a child to remind us of our universality. We each begin exactly like Jade, chest rising and falling as we sleep, oblivious to the love sent to us through the air by our neighbors born in other lands. On this day of vows, I vowed to continue filling the air with love, keeping vigil, until Jade, along with the remainder of the yearning world would awake, just in time to hear the latest whisper. She will, no doubt, one day launch her own whisper of love to the wind, destined to reach the next sleeping child of mankind.

"Wo ai ni, sweet Jade," I whispered one last time through her closed door, that night a year and a half later.

"Wannie, too!" She shouted back with glee bright enough to wake our entire catatonic world of doubt.

Meet Cathy, an award winning freelance writer 

Another fine piece of writing by Cathy - 'The Ultimate Importance of Humanity'

Articles & Stories about Life in China

 HOME