Extended Relatives

They say you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family. That isn’t entirely true.

I recently found out from my mother that my late paternal grandmother had three miscarriages in a row after having 2 children. Three. I think grandma and grandpa slept on separate beds after that as a contraceptive method. Years later she had a third and last successful pregnancy at age 43 and had my youngest aunt. They attributed the miscarriages to “poor health” and grandmother attributed the last successful pregnancy to taking extra herbs to boost her health.

Back in the old days as they didn’t have ultrasounds and probably not very good understanding of the women’s cycle, I assume all 3 of the miscarriages were not early ones (I didn’t get the details). I always knew grandma was a strong woman — her spine was severely handicapped/crooked but never ever complained about her condition / pain — but I didn’t know she had also endured the heartaches of losing 3 babies.

There was another family in the city who also had 3 miscarriages around the same time my grandma did. They also have 2 healthy live children.

Our family and theirs have “tied the knot”, literally, ever since… since I can remember. There were even ceremonies involved. We became relatives, but have no blood relations with each other whatsoever.

It’s a strange cultural phenomena / custom*, but I think it is quite considerate of the mother and the lost babies. It is a respectful way to remember, to cherish, and to heal. I’m not entirely sure whether miscarriages are as taboo to talk about in our culture as it is in the western culture. It doesn’t seem so, especially when families and communities are very closely knitted and the women knows everything about everyone. But I can assure you, the cause(s) are just as misunderstood, if not more, as I personally have encountered with my miscarriage last October.

So how does it work? What kind of ceremonies? How do you “pick” the other family? Well I want to know the details, too.

But from what I can gather, when a baby dies (either from miscarriage, or early infant/toddler death), they are forever memorialized. They are people who have a spirit and a soul, and they now live on “the other side” (not heaven as westerners knows it, since most Chinese subscribe to a modified version of Buddhism). And they are remembered yearly on the anniversary of their departure by some sort of ritual performed by the family. Their communities knows about them, especially the women. The family will search out for another family who is in a similar situation (after it all “settles” down I’m sure). They will get to know each other better, they will discuss things, and they will make a decision whether to become “family”. Then there’s a big ritual that’s performed, sacrificing chicken and rice wine and other delicacies to the ancestors. And voila, you have another family. As the years go by, the children grow up, just like we do on “this side”. By the time they would have reached young adulthood, the two families would perform another ceremony / ritual that would officially “marry” the 2 children.

This extended family of ours is very kind and loving. Grandma couldn’t have picked a better family to be part of ours.

* I can’t tell you how widely practiced this custom is, but I do believe it is only practiced in certain parts of China.