Catherine Sevenau is a writer and storyteller who is out to capture your skittery mind. She's penned three books, compiled numerous collections of family genealogy, and has been a regular columnist in the SUN since 2016. She can be reached at [email protected].
Bless this mess
I’m hard-wired for formal prayer. I recite the Our Father when an earthquake hits and sometimes at night as I fall asleep. Then a Hail Mary arises, a woman about whom I hold equally wobbly beliefs. I surrender and move on to bless my family, friends and those who irritate me. Some nights I cut to the chase and only bless the ones I want to smack upside the head.
Both of my grandmothers were Catholic, stubborn and right. I’m quite like them, though I don’t know why I still refer to myself as Catholic. I’m addicted to being right, which tends to be corrosive in relationships. Resentment is in our cellular memory, creeping through generations, across lines and around corners. When Grandpa Charlie Chatfield (who had the propensity to err) died, the only thing Grandma Nellie had to say was, “serves the damn fool right.” She then proceeded to bury him in an unmarked grave in the non-Catholic section of the cemetery. And throughout, the higher Nellie stood on her moral ground, the lower her family descended.
It’s hard to restore family grace if there wasn’t much to begin with, though it does make for good storytelling. C’mon, who’s captivated by tales of Catholic farmers with passels of kids who worked the same land for generations, who seldom broke the rules? They lend stability via my Clemens’ side but offer less to write about. My maternal Chatfield, Hoy and Chamberlin lines teem with material. I have stories that make compelling page-turners: pills, prison, murder, rape, kidnapping, neglect, asylums, shock treatments and suicides. I also have poisonings, cattle thieves, liars, embezzlers, bettors, bootleggers and drunks. I have a grandfather who gambled away the ranch, only one of the reasons Grandma Nellie never forgave him. I have gay elopements (in May of 1889, Ora Chatfield (age 15), ran off with her cousin Clara Deitrich (age 28), the postmistress of Emma, Colorado (you can look it up), along with multiple marriages and numerous divorces. In my direct line I have four generations of mothers who, with infants or young children in tow, left their husbands. I am the last of that tradition. Actually, my mother didn’t leave with her children, she just took her coat and two suitcases. I have an Arcturian, flying saucer abductions and ghosts. I don’t have to ponder what to write about; I have to ponder what NOT to write about. Sorry, I got sidetracked here.
I believe in the ineffable power of prayer, though it’s presumptuous of me to suppose that I can decipher – in the grand scheme of things – to pray for what I think is best. Some say prayers can move mountains; that, however, is where my critical thinking raises its hairy head, seeking evidence. If you pray for rain long enough, it eventually does fall. The same happens in the absence of prayers. The best I can do is to still my rattling mind, to sit in silence and gratitude. To continue to recite: forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against – the sacred version of let it go, let it go, let it go – sometimes out of habit, other times with intention. Forgiving someone doesn’t mean forgetting what was done, it just means to stop blaming others and move on. We don’t have to do lunch.
