When two people marry, they create a new family. However, their families—especially the parents of the new couple—now also have a bond. There’s a delightful Yiddish word that describes that co-in-law bond: machatunim. Machatunim describes the family of the heart.
We can choose how large we want this heart-based family to be.
Last week, I realized how large some of the family of my heart is. Unfortunately, a BFM (beloved family member) lost his long battle with cancer. At the funeral, we saw many relatives we’d met at our children’s wedding. We cried with the family. Even though his death was a blessing, it’s always hard to process. (It is for me—maybe you have better coping skills than I do.)
But I realized something beautiful through the various levels of grief: we get to enjoy the other family’s families—the grandchildren, the cousins, everyone who touches our daughter.
That’s the family of our heart. It’s large and messy and beautiful.
Some families have only messiness. That messiness reduces the family of our hearts.
But the families who embrace each other, despite the various messes? Those make the families of our hearts larger and more beautiful.
Regardless of your wedded state, I hope you can embrace your machatunim—the family of your heart, and that your family is large, and messy and beautiful.
Johanna, I’m so sorry to hear about the passing of your BFM. As I read, I changed your sentence in my head, and want to give it to you now: “Even though his death was a blessing, it’s always hard to process, because his life was such a blessing, too.”
Marsha, thank you. And that is a lovely way to think about people’s lives.