Culture of One | Katriel Sahlstrom

I was born to a teenage orphan mother and a soon-to-be unemployed father in

the wild and beautiful land of Alaska.

Today, I attend a private Christian college. My two parents and three younger siblings live in a beautiful home and state, attend church faithfully, and are what most would call happy and successful.

My mother’s mother was put up for adoption in Mexico after surviving a late-term abortion. My mother’s father was a gardener. By the time my mom was fourteen, both parents had died from a viral infection.

My mother’s older brother and my father were childhood friends. When the teenagers were orphaned, my father’s family-the Sahlstroms-took them in. Eventually, my parents started dating and got married, my mother at only seventeen.

Early in my father’s college career his parents took part in an extreme Christian movement called “The Move.”  They abandoned their family property and traveled to the supposed utopian and debated communist Canadian farm. My father had always wanted to be a doctor, but he changed his track to teaching in order to better suit this movement.

Soon, “The Move” fell apart, and its members dispersed back to their homes. They moved to Alaska, drawn by the independence and beauty of the state. When my father was teaching science at a high school, I was born. After my first brother arrived, my dad decided to go to medical school.

During this time, lab notebooks were piled high to grade on one side of the table and MCAT studies on the other. Later, my father was accepted into the University of Washington School of Medicine. In exchange for a partial loan forgiveness, he committed to practice medicine in the State of Alaska once he was through.

Two, then three children and a stay-at home mom lived off of student loans. However, Alaska always beckoned us to return. My parents talked about Alaska and told us that someday, we’d live there.

Now, I live in a bowl of majestic purple mountains, in fields of bright billowing flowers, amongst crystal streams sparkling with gold. Alaska is home. Someday, I hope to practice medicine there like my father.

My parents have found God for themselves, apart from their parents. Today, I seek to find the truth for myself. The Christian religion has its extremists, movers, and apathetics but my family’s traditional and historic Christian faith has shaped me indeterminably. My family, faith, and state have created a culture of traditional conservative beliefs and independence. While I tend to be outspoken and sometimes abrasive and insensitive, I am thankful for the deep strength that I have inherited from my family, my faith, and my homeland.