There\u2019s a reason why I\u2019m the one to tell this tale, but that will come later. The story starts with a Christmas letter.<\/p>\n
It was one of Deborah Breda\u2019s most cherished holiday traditions. She loved sharing with family and friends, telling everyone how the kids were doing in school, how they were adjusting to the New Jersey winters, her husband John\u2019s career at the bank, her work as a teacher, their Bible study at church.<\/p>\n
Even more, she looked forward to the letters that came in return, savoring the smallest tidbit of news, a niece\u2019s violin solo or a new pet. She felt a connection, a sense of belonging she\u2019d craved all her life. But the one letter she looked forward to most had never arrived.<\/p>\n
For 11 years she\u2019d faithfully mailed her family\u2019s news to Winston- Salem, North Carolina, to a doctor she\u2019d met only once when she was a girl and had her picture taken with him. The one person she knew who might be able to answer her questions about her father.<\/p>\n
She was a 40-year-old woman, with a family of her own, but there was an emptiness in her life.<\/p>\n
Now once again at her kitchen table she addressed an envelope to Dr. Reid Bahnson. Her pen hesitated at the bottom of the letter. What could she say that she hadn\u2019t said before?<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope you have a merry Christmas,\u201d Deborah finally wrote. \u201cYou\u2019re always in my thoughts and prayers. Would love to hear from you sometime.\u201d She folded the letter and put it in the envelope. It seemed such a futile gesture. But if she gave up hope what would she have left?<\/p>\n
Growing up in her maternal grandparents\u2019 home in tiny Nederland, Texas, an hour from the Gulf of Mexico, she\u2019d often questioned her mother, Joyce, for details about her father.<\/p>\n
How had they met? Was he handsome? What was he like? Why had he left them? And where was he now? Why did he never write or call? An endless stream of queries bubbled up inside of her.<\/p>\n
Her mother answered her questions, sparingly. Deborah pieced everything together the best she could, like an enormous jigsaw puzzle whose pieces never seemed to quite fit.<\/p>\n
Joyce Guthrie had met Alec Bahnson in 1960 at a Christian school run by an evangelist in Arizona where they were both teachers. He was incredibly handsome, strong and athletic, intense and charismatic, nearly 10 years older than she.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d fought in World War II with the legendary 10th Mountain Division, an alpine unit that suffered terrible casualties.<\/p>\n
They had a whirlwind romance, marrying only six months after they met, not even telling their families until afterward. They left the school and traveled across the country, finally arriving in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where the Bahnsons had settled in the early 1860s.<\/p>\n
There her husband no longer seemed like the same man she\u2019d fallen in love with. He was moody, prone to strange, obsessive behavior and angry outbursts. It only got worse after she told him she was pregnant. Months later he left her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came back to Granddad and Grandma\u2019s, and that\u2019s when you were born,\u201d her mom told Deborah. \u201cThey helped me heal from the divorce so you could be brought up in a healthy environment and we could continue on with our lives. We\u2019re both so very, very blessed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deborah loved living with her grandparents. There was always someone to read her a story or take her to the park. Joyce, a schoolteacher, had summers off. But it wasn\u2019t enough to fill the void inside of her.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened to Daddy?\u201d Deborah would invariably ask.<\/p>\n
It was an era when no one spoke of mental illness or what they called shell shock back then. \u201cThe war affected him,\u201d her mom said. \u201cAnd I think the responsibility of being a husband and then me being pregnant was just too much. Still, I know he loves you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her mother never once said a cross word about Alec Bahnson. In fact, she went out of her way to talk up the Bahnsons. They were doctors, inventors, business people, prominent in Winston- Salem. But the question lingered, why didn\u2019t they ever get in touch?<\/p>\n
Then when she was 12, her mother announced that they were going on a vacation, a cross-country trip to New York City. Along the way they\u2019d stop wherever they liked. A week later they pulled off Interstate 40, deep in North Carolina. Winston-Salem, the exit sign read.<\/p>\n
They drove by the Bahnson family homestead, an impressive Tudor house. Deborah looked on, her eyes as wide as saucers. A few blocks away her mother stopped outside a beautiful stone building.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the office of one of your father\u2019s brothers, Dr. Reid Bahnson,\u201d her mother said. \u201cC\u2019mon, let\u2019s say hi.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joyce introduced herself to the receptionist. Minutes later a tall, distinguished man in a white coat appeared, his expression puzzled. Deborah realized her mother hadn\u2019t even told him they were coming.<\/p>\n
\u201cDr. Bahnson,\u201d Joyce said, \u201cI\u2019d like you to meet my daughter, Debbie…your niece.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, uh, it\u2019s nice, I mean, welcome,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat brings you to Winston-Salem?\u201d<\/p>\n
They talked for only a few minutes. Dr. Bahnson posed for a picture with Deborah outside the office. And that was it. No hugs. No promises to keep in touch. What her mother hoped for, Deborah didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
But the name and the memory never left Deborah. Somehow this polite but reticent man seemed like the key that could unlock this hidden side to her family. But how?<\/p>\n
She sometimes held the snapshot of herself and the doctor in her hands, as she did now before sending yet another Christmas letter to him in Winston-Salem, praying for an answer. It was 2001. Her son was 12 years old, her daughter, 10, old enough to have questions of their own about their ancestry.<\/p>\n
Then one evening the phone rang. \u201cIs this Deborah Breda?\u201d a voice on the other end asked, a voice she couldn\u2019t place.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Deborah said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy name is Fred Bahnson,\u201d the caller said. \u201cI\u2019m sorry to be the one to tell you, but your father, Alec, has passed away. I\u2019m the executor of his will and, well, I thought you should know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Questions whirled in her mind amid a sea of emotions. \u201cHow did you find me?\u201d Deborah finally asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked my uncle, Dr. Reid, if he knew how to reach your mother,\u201d Fred said. \u201cHe had a box full of Christmas letters from you. We\u2019re having a memorial service. Would you be able to come?\u201d<\/p>\n
In a church in North Carolina she listened intently to the words spoken of her father, a man it seemed no one could fully explain. He\u2019d bravely served his country and devoted much of his life to missionary work.<\/p>\n
But all agreed, after the war he wasn\u2019t the same, his mind troubled, easily stressed, haunted, it seemed, prone to nervous breakdowns. She learned he\u2019d been hospitalized for a time in the early 1950s.\u201cI know your father loved you,\u201d many people told her. \u201cIt\u2019s just a shame he was so troubled.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet at long last she had a family: cousins, aunts, uncles, people who wanted to keep in touch, to send Christmas letters, who invited her into their lives. She felt embraced and cared for, that emptiness in her finally filled.<\/p>\n
She never got a full explanation of why they had kept her and her mom at arm\u2019s length, but she sensed pretty clearly that they were protecting her from her father\u2019s unstable behavior.<\/p>\n
Suddenly that lifelong jigsaw puzzle felt nearly complete, as if God was putting in the final pieces, answering a lifetime of prayer. Through a Christmas letter.<\/p>\n
A few months later she was going through some of her deceased grandmother\u2019s effects. And there in a box filled with old photos and letters she found an envelope addressed to her. Sent airmail from Israel. It was from her father, written on one of his missionary travels.<\/p>\n
\u201cI planted two trees here to honor your mother and you. You\u2019re always in my thoughts and I love you very much.\u201d Deborah\u2019s mother was as shocked as she was. No doubt her grandmother had hidden the letters to protect Joyce and Deborah.<\/p>\n
Deborah would never fully understand her past and her father\u2019s pain or the desire of people to protect children, even from the truth. Yet now she would be able to explain the past to her own children.<\/p>\n
By now, you might have guessed, the reason I\u2019m telling this story is because I\u2019m Deborah\u2019s daughter. The story, you see, doesn\u2019t end there.<\/p>\n
Inspired by my mother reconnecting with her Tar Heel heritage, I set my sights on going to North Carolina for college. I was Chapel Hill bound, drawn by its history, size and prestige.<\/p>\n
Then my guidance counselor suggested I look at another North Carolina school, tiny Davidson College. I\u2019d never heard of it. Not interested, I told her. No way. But she kept pushing. Finally, I agreed to visit the campus.<\/p>\n
There in the student union I saw a familiar name on a plaque honoring alumni: Bahnson. A trip to the library uncovered a weathered 1946 annual and a picture of my grandfather Alec Bahnson. A Davidson alum. Just like his brothers, Henry and Reid, before him.<\/p>\n
A cousin, I discovered later, had just graduated himself. I felt an incredible sense of connection, of belonging. As if I were that final piece of our family\u2019s puzzle. I was right where I was meant to be.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n