Grant Hallstrom founded HistoryofChristianTheology.com and is the primary contributor of its content.
Mr. Hallstrom is the author of the award-winning historical novel Amora, the self-help book Emotional Black Holes, and several articles regarding the application of theology in one’s personal life.
He is also the founder and managing partner of the full-service business law firm, Hallstrom Klein & Ward LLP, located in Irvine, California. He is married to his sweetheart, Jean, and they have six children and eleven grandchildren.
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From the author:
My distinguished friends Terence Rose and his wife, Brenda Shakarian, convinced me, with great resistance on my part, of the need to share the backstory of my decision to write Amora. I hope that you accept it in the spirit that it is shared and respect the tenderness of this account for all those involved.
Every family has tragedies. This is the story of one of our family’s tragedies. Despite some mental and emotional disabilities, my younger brother, Calvin, married and had three children. He worked hard and held down three low-paying jobs to support his family and purchased a small home. However, he was difficult to live with, so when he traveled to California to attend our sister’s wedding, his wife changed the locks on the house and filed for divorce. When he told our parents what had happened, our father’s paternal protective instincts kicked in, and he took Calvin to his home and barged in, exacerbating an already difficult situation.
The divorce was hard on everyone―Calvin, his ex-wife, and their children. Their oldest son moved out on his own shortly after high school. The middle child came out as transgender when she was around twenty years old. The youngest boy developed social anxiety and basically did not work or go to school after high school. Instead, he spent most of his time playing video games in their basement.
Sadly, a few years after the middle child came out as transgender, she committed suicide. Calvin’s ex-wife uninvited my brother and our side of the family to the funeral and even refused to let us know where Calvin’s child was buried. Throughout this ordeal, Calvin refused to let anyone say anything negative about his ex-wife in his presence.
The youngest boy blamed his father for the loss of his sibling and only confidant, so six months later, he contacted my brother under the guise of reconciliation. Calvin was ecstatic. He told our mother, “My counselor was right! She said I needed to let my boys go but keep the door open, and someday they will come back to me.” Calvin drove over to take his boy to dinner, and after they met and embraced, his son stabbed him to death.
As soon as I received the news, I booked a flight to be with my mom, who lived with Calvin. While driving from the airport to her home, I had the distinct impression that Calvin was with me, that he still loved his son who had just murdered him, and that he wanted me to tell everyone that we need to forgive one another. This experience made it easy for me to embrace his ex-wife when she contacted me, sobbing, expressing her grief for our loss and her sorrow for excluding us from the funeral six months earlier. It was just something that she could not deal with at the time. We shared tears as I felt her pain from the double loss she had suffered.
So, in addition to my comments at Calvin’s funeral (https://youtu.be/zo8zzVfoMTQ) and my testimony at my nephew’s sentencing, I wrote Amora in an effort to honor this charge from my deceased brother to tell everyone that we need to forgive one another so that we can find the love and healing that we all desperately seek. I hope that my effort in some small way helps you along the difficult path of forgiveness so that you, too, can enjoy the peace, comfort, and security that forgiving and being forgiven brings. May God bless you in this endeavor is my humble prayer.
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