Unbroken: A Memoir Read online

  UNBROKEN

  UNBROKEN:

  A Memoir

  By Bethany Granholm

  UNBROKEN: A Memoir

  First Edition

  Copyright © 2016 Bethany Granholm

  Certain identifying characteristics have been changed and some events have been compressed or slightly reordered.

  Conversations have occasionally been paraphrased to protect the identity of the speaker or the subject.

  Those who have had similar experiences as written here, and have come to different conclusions, are as entitled to their beliefs as I.

  The intent is not to encourage or diminish any specific religious or political views. It is simply to tell my story.

  All Rights Reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Please write to [email protected] for permissions.

  Cover Design © Bethany Granholm

  ISBN: 978-1532988042

  Acknowledgements

  This book would never have been if not for Andrea Muller, whose eyes saw this story first, and whose fierce love championed me chapter by chapter to write and then to publish. Thank you, my sister-friend. Thank you to my family, and especially my children, who love me despite everything, and who sacrificed to make this book a reality. Thank you to my friends, whose generous contributions allowed me to bring my story to the world.

  A special thank-you is in order to my most amazing team of friends who served as my editors; Anna McCarthy, Rachel Hinton, and my favorite elementary school reading buddy, Tracy Rahn. Your advice and insights proved invaluable. Thank you to my father, Captain Robert Granholm. Dad, you have always been a wonderful father, and I am grateful for you always. A most heartfelt thank-you must also be given to those who made my father who he is - my grandparents Victor and Shirley Granholm. You two have been the first to cheer for my success and the last to comment on my failures. You have been a rock and a helping hand. Words could never be enough. I love you both tremendously.

  Finally, thank you to my readers. Thank you for showing me again that love is stronger than fear. The love and support from my community has made me stand taller and stronger.

  Life really is better together.

  To the eagle, the otter and the owl.

  Thank you for bringing me back to life.

  Love, your Mama

  Why Write A Memoir?

  A Foreword

  I’ve always believed that storytelling is a gift, and I’ve been on the receiving end for most of my life. I read the classics, postmodern works, historical fiction, fantasy, and memoirs, and I loved them all. In my life, stories have been treasures, each one given to me, the reader, to help, to heal, and to entertain. Even when I wasn’t the one reading, I was listening. My father is a preacher and my mother is a teacher, and storytelling has been in my blood since the day I came into this world.

  Except that for years I didn’t write. I was afraid of my own words, afraid that my terrible truths would spill out for all to read. When I did start writing, I decided to be more academic about it, to put space between my experiences and myself. I wrote about my journey with the desire to piece together my own life on a timeline, and partly to help others with similar struggles, but I feel that I was not actually a part of my story until I started writing about my thoughts, my feelings, and using the word “I”. For my story to heal me, I had to own it.

  The result of this was that the work, this memoir, became a gift to me. I saw my life from the perspective of a narrator, which was both difficult and freeing, and I began to adopt a more sympathetic view of myself. As I examined my life without judgment, I started to feel a connection to myself as the main character. As I wrote, I found that I was no longer ashamed of myself, but accepting, and in this way the book became a part of my story. Writing was a part of my path to healing.

  For almost two years I worked on the manuscript, and while I dreamed of having it published, I was pursuing my degree and raising three young children. Eventually, I put the book away as a project to revisit at a later date. Then, one New Years day, a tragedy occurred that caused me to wonder if my story might positively impact others, and if so, whether or not it was my responsibility to share it. The question I kept returning to was this: If we have hope, is it our duty to give it to those who will accept it from us?

  So, with the reader in my mind, I decided to self-publish this memoir. If this book has made its way into your hands, I hope you know that in the end, I wrote it for you. I wish you your own magnificent journey to freedom and wholeness. I pray that you, too, have the help you need to find your way back, and the tools you need to go forward. Most of all, I hope you realize that you are not alone, that you are worthy and deserving of having your own story told, and that if you ever come to a chapter in your own life and think “this is the end,” that you will be brave enough to give it one more page. Because if there is hope for me, there is hope for you.

  And I hope now that, at the very least, you enjoy what you are about to read.

  With Love, Bethany

  Table Of Contents

  Preface

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Epilogue

  Preface

  Some downward spirals are so slow that they creep up on you, taking root in your heart while you are unaware, slowly growing to choke out life. Sorrow winds around your soul until it defines you, until it owns you. You can save yourself only by carefully untangling from the grip of what is crushing you, tediously, painfully, one step at a time, until you are free.

  Other times, these spirals are fast and cataclysmic. You lean over the edge of a pit and find yourself at the bottom, surrounded by the debris of your life and the scattered remains of your soul. Then, you take what you can carry and begin the backbreaking ascent to level ground, looking towards the heavens and climbing for your life.

  This is how the broken became unbroken.

  “When you write your truth, it is a love offering to the world because it helps us feel braver and less alone.”

  Glennon Doyle Melton, Carry On Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life

  CHAPTER ONE

  In The Beginning

  My father, having been raised in California during the 60s and 70s, was by nature a most endearing hippie. He was a man given to wanderlust and unplanned adventures. He converted to Christianity in his mid-twenties, after his travels had taken him to the roaring Bible-belt of America. He left home an acid-tripping vagabond and returned home a charismatic, Bible-toting, Billy Graham-quoting preacher. It was a natural combination of his two great loves – God and travel – that drove him to Bible College in Central Canada, and it was not long after starting his Christian education that he fell victim to the destiny of all Bible College attendees. Marriage.

  What attracted my father, a man who had grown up in a non-religious home and had lived a fairly liberal life before his great conversion, to a woman like my mother was that she was exactly the opposite.

  My mother was adopted as a baby by an elderly couple who could not concei
ve. Her new mother was a one-room school teacher, and her new father a conservative fire-and-brimstone preacher. My mother had been a Christian as long as she could remember, and had never so much as crossed the street without looking twice. There was a fear in her, an aversion to recklessness, that, when coupled with her conservative upbringing, managed to keep her far from trouble, although she did dip her toes in wild waters during a summer camp in the late seventies, when she smoked a pack of cigarettes, one after the other so she wouldn’t get caught, lighting each one with the end of the one before it and vibrating with the effects of nicotine and rebellion.

  By the time my father entered her life, she had repented and made good use of her foolish teenage ways by incorporating it into her personal testimony. Endowed with such righteousness and strength of character, there was no doubt in her mind of her future. She knew just where God was leading her. And my father, who really wanted to get married, knew exactly where God was leading him.

  Their wedding was small and uneventful, as my mother’s teetotaler parents saw to the reception. The honeymoon was just as uneventful, as I’ve heard it told, but life was destined to become interesting for both of them shortly after. My parents, misinformed by their expensive religious education, believed that the best way to bring Jesus to the nations was to travel overseas and hand out small, beautifully designed pieces of paper with uplifting Bible verses printed across them. This is exactly what they proceeded to do. My parents joined an organization that traveled in a huge, refurbished tanker ship to any country with an ocean port and a need for Jesus. While my parents lived out their humanitarian dreams, somewhere between Ireland and Venezuela my mother discovered the miracle that is procreation. She was to have a baby.

  My mother is a very private individual, and above all, practical. I’d like to think that the news of my impending arrival into this world incited joy and delight in my mother’s heart. But it’s far more likely that my expected birth was met with a bout of seasickness and a fierce resentment of the man foolish enough to take his new bride to a country with developing-world medical standards. My mother spent her first pregnancy far from her family, far from her home, and far from the shore. She managed to get through this discouraging time by dreaming of the two of us, of nursing me in the sunlight and singing hymns while she rocked me to sleep, this baby that was her ally in the unstable and awkward world of International Missions.

  When my mother, who gets sick when she sees blood, heard horror stories from the Venezuelan woman about delivering their own babies in hospital corridors, she urged my father to return to the United States, where his family lived, so that seeing a doctor might be an option. He agreed this was important, and they made arrangements to temporarily leave the mission field. This is how my parents managed to find themselves in Northern California on the finest of midsummer days.

  Nestled between California’s sprawling coastline and the majestic coastal mountains lies a city filled with Redwood trees and sunshine. It was there, on a hot summer day in mid-July, that my mother began pacing the shag carpet of my grandparents’ house, counting contractions and praying through gritted teeth.

  My father was away painting the house of the neighbor several doors down, hoping to make enough money to pay hospital fees. This was a fearful concept to my mother, a Canadian with no experience paying for medical services.

  She worried about what might happen if they were to show up at the hospital without enough to pay the bill, and since she was in no condition to work herself, she contributed by remaining at home until the end of her long labor, which took her through the heat of the day and into the cool of night.

  When it became obvious that medical intervention was needed, my overdue mother was packed into the family station wagon and driven to the hospital, where she was poked and prodded and provided with the luxury of a hospital gurney.

  While my mother wondered when it would end, and how much it would cost, my father raced between the delivery room and the waiting room to give ecstatic updates to his parents and his younger sister, who sat for hours in uncomfortable hospital chairs awaiting news. He was so filled with frenetic energy that he made what might be his earliest attempt at a joke.

  He ran to the waiting room, scrubs, gloves, and cap on, to inform them that the doctor had fainted and he had delivered the baby himself. He then ran off without another word, leaving them to speculate between themselves about what was happening behind closed doors.

  Unfortunately for my mother, the doctor had not fainted. He was wide awake and quite fond of forceps, and when my mother was not successful in managing to deliver me in her own way, he snapped the forceps and cheerfully went to work. That is how one screaming, squalling, purple-faced baby girl came into this world. I was a chubby baby with thick, dark hair that stood straight up on end, like it had been given an electric shock. I was, as my mother was prone to say afterwards, a difficult baby to look at, but my parents managed to recover from this fact and I became the center of their world.

  My mother and I were discharged the following morning, and my father came to collect us. We returned to my grandparents’ house to find a massive banner stretched across the length of the patio, enthusiastically designed by my politically zealous aunt, which read “Welcome Home Baby, First Female President of The United States!” Sadly, that is not how this story ends, but the sentiment was appreciated by all.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Lost At Sea

  My proud father secured more painting jobs, and my mother settled in to bond with her new daughter. My mother’s dream of maternal bliss was short-lived. She nursed me, I cried. She rocked me, I cried. She sang hymns, I cried. She cried, I cried, and together we wrestled with our uniform disappointment with life. I wish I could say now what the problem was, what mysterious issue I struggled with in my tiny body, but the source of my discontent remained hidden from both of us, and my mother unwillingly entered a shift in her job description as she was demoted from Giver of Life to the lesser, more onerous title Holder of The Crying Baby.

  As it turned out, there was a limit to my unhappiness, but my mother was rarely the beneficiary of my good moods. By the time my father got home from work, I was tired from a long day of colic. My mother was also tired, and she would hand me to him the minute he got home and shut herself in the bedroom to sleep. I would laugh, coo, and snuggle into my father’s sweaty chest to sleep, and that man was never the same because of it. His delight encouraged mine, and from the beginning I was enamored with my father.

  My parents returned to the ship and to our exotic lives as missionaries when I was three months old. I spent the next several years bathing in the ocean, running stark-naked across the beaches, and suffering from various unknown tropical diseases while my parents ardently tried to convert the locals.

  It was both peculiar and extraordinary to grow up in this part of the world as a child who called a ship cabin and a suitcase home, and I was not the only child there. There were a large number of missionaries on our ship, all with homes and families and churches in other parts of the Western world that provided financial support. We subscribed to an updated version of the Great Commission, one that vaguely translated into “go forth and make disciples of all nations by rendering yourself as literate but poverty stricken, remain uplifted and don’t forget to write home and ask for donations.” This was the Missionary Way, but all were there with the best of intentions. My life was filled with people who were burdened with bleeding hearts for the nations. I grew up feeling as if this beautiful and tragic part of the world belonged to me.

  After several years of living overseas, my parents were weary missionaries. It was early spring when my father was offered work in a real, brick-and-mortar office in Georgia. It was with the same Christian organization that managed our ship. We packed our bags, said goodbye to our ocean home, and headed to the rolling hills of The South.

  There is a certain amount of culture shock that occurs when Missionaries return from their post a
nd re-enter their natural culture. There is a feeling of displacement, of not knowing how or where to fit into your old environment after experiencing a more adrenaline-charged version of life and Christianity. This was certainly the case for my parents, who still identified as Missionaries even though they were now living in Georgia. They sought out the familiar church life and re-acclimatized by involving themselves deeply in the local Christian community.

  I was also shocked. Georgia was so green and metropolitan that I immediately fell in love with that great southern state. The landscape was marvelously rich, the trees and shrubbery decorated with a kaleidoscope of green, and all of nature was well-manicured and maintained in comparison to the wild foliage of the islands we had left behind. It was breathtaking and beautiful, and it was about to get better.

  I was introduced to North America and experienced for the first time things like television, supermarkets, and the great American value of Entitlement. I knew immediately that I was going to enjoy my new home. Now, for the first time in my life, we lived in a house that was our own. We had furniture that was not bolted to a metal floor. I watched a movie for the first time, a Hanna Barbara Bible story, and could not imagine how we had lived without television. I was given my own bedroom, my own toys, and my first pair of brand new shoes, a pair of sparkling red Mary Janes which I prized above all else. I discovered finger paints, bicycles and Strawberry Shortcake. Then I discovered candy. I embraced our new life with all the fervor of a child, thrilled to the core by every new sight and sound, beset with desire and wanting, both literally and figuratively, a five course meal with dessert.