THE CHINESE CONSIDER the owl to be a cateagle: Part cat, part eagle, it is a bird believed to possess vast and enviable qualities. I remember learning about its Chinese heritage sixteen years ago in this season as I awaited the adoption of our daughter.
At the time I was reading Amy Tan’s “The Hundred Secret Senses,” in which cateagle figures prominently. I loved the image, the qualities ascribed to the bird, the name itself. Cateagle. It seemed so brave.
Being brave about adopting was not something that came naturally to me. And we were adopting in China so my anxiety was increased by the distance, the cultural gulf between all of us. How would this really go, I wondered? I knew parenting was hard work but would it be harder with a baby not my own? How much did that mean to me? There was no ruler for this, only instinct and instinct can be a frail as it is mighty.
Then one snowy night my husband and I were driving very slowly along a rural road and were abruptly halted in our way by a white owl descending through the falling snow and landing fifteen feet in front of our car. The bird simply stared into the headlights as all around us the snow swirled. No one else came along on the road and so we sat there, two humans pressed up against the windshield, the beautiful big bird gazing back at us with a steadiness I can still feel today.
Maybe we sat for five minutes. Maybe it was only two. But we looked and the magnificent bird looked back and then after a while, gathering all the snow beneath those great wings, the cateagle lifted into the air, right into the snow and swooped off into the night.
“She’s coming,” I said to my husband through my tears. “She’s really coming.” And I knew for certain that no matter what, it was our little girl who was on her way to our hearts and home.
We left for China soon after and on February 6, 1996 were met our daughter. On Valentine’s Day we arrived back in New York.
Every year we celebrate the day we met. We had to commemorate it. Of course, our first instinct was to throw a party but that soon seemed wrong. There was something about our anniversary that called for quiet and simple togetherness. It seemed that this only required a party of three.
We don’t do much on what we have taken to calling Family Day: Dinner at home together, some talking about how much we love one another, how grateful we are and invariably I call our daughter my little cateagle and she smiles, indulging me as she always does when I see or hear an owl or just want to remind her what she means to me. And after I get teary and my husband and daughter get to roll their eyes at me just long enough, we climb onto the couch and look at pictures.
On that very first anniversary, when our daughter was 18 months old, my husband suggested that we get out the photo album and begin a tradition we keep every year by telling the story of her adoption to our daughter. The first time the photos were little more than something to drool over but as the years have passed they have taken on the power that only pictures of such an event can have: There are my husband and me taking the train, the two of us in a garden, the two of us at a hotel. And then there are three and nothing has ever been the same since.
Linda Baie says
I have two adopted children, my brother has three, all are now grown up with wonderful families of their own. Thank you for sharing your story. I loved reading it.
Tina says
I am adopted and think this is a touching memoir. I want to tell the story of my adoption and living as an adopted child, having a child of my own and what it feels like to have her. Maybe someday.
Heather Marsten says
I love the way you are documenting the memories – makes it so rich and makes her feel special.
Marcia Moston says
love the story and the telling–especially the ending. Perfect
nancy nichols says
Dear Marion – I love your beautiful story. I recently developed a fondness for owls. Yesterday at the Gem Show in Tucson, I was poking through a box of stone carvings for pendants. I asked the Asian vendor if she had any owls. She said no but I turned back to the same box and there, on top, the first object to catch my eye, was an owl carved out of a stone missing it’s right ear. I showed it to her and a friendly light appeared in her face. Very old she said. It felt just right in my hand. So for 2 bucks I walked off with my very own Cateagle. Amazing the serendipity of your tale.
Happy Anniversary to you, Rex and Grace!
marion says
Hi there, Nancy. How lovely to read you here, and how marvelous of you to share with us your cateagle story. Thank you for the anniversary wishes. Please come see me again soon. I miss you.
hollia says
Marion,
Such a beautiful memory. Thanks for sharing it.
Donna Miller says
Dear Marion, Rex and Grace – Happy family day and happy anniversary. Adoption brings together a child, loving parents and a universe of resources to feed the soul through the years of learning to love each other. I rejoice in your family and wish you the slow, steady climb of the owl – taking you higher and sometimes apart but always able to bring you back to the nest built by a family’s heart. All my love to you.
marion says
Thank you, Donna. How kind and loving of you to come here with this message. Much love right back.
Margaret Dubay Mikus says
Loved this story, Marion, especially the vivid image of the two of you waiting in the snow for the cateagle to fly off after “delivering” the message. It reminded me of a poem I wrote about a dear friend and her husband who adopted a Chinese baby girl. They put this poem, her “re-birth” story in a way, in a notebook about her origins which they made for her to remember where she came from.
10/10/97
The Story of a Baby Girl
From halfway around the world
a child called out
in a language old as the Universe.
In response, on the other side
two parents wrote and waited,
an unusually long gestation
borne by both.
And when the time came,
when all was ready,
they flew all night to get her.
Risking a safe life,
trusting in the Guardian,
they traveled with hearts in hands.
The trip was well-prepared and smooth
to meet the one who called so long ago.
She was charming, she was sweet,
a tiny sparkling mite; she was hungry
and filled with delight, eager to belong.
She had been saved, one of many abandoned.
She had been saved to be the daughter of,
to grow up in a language not her own.
A call went out from two hungry hearts
for one to call their own,
to keep in trust, to love, to cherish.
From halfway around the world
the answer came:
come get her.
***
Even more than most
the question is obvious:
why is she here,
what is her purpose?
To be in the world
who she is,
who she is becoming.
Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 1997