If anyone ever thought I was slow to forgive, they might be right. But it happens, eventually, and I suppose that is what matters. First, I have to do the work of the mind and heart ~ relive the moments, do the playbook thing where I see all the coulda, shoulda, wouldas ~ and figure out where things stand going forward. Next, I have to pray it out. It may take awhile, but eventually, forgiveness happens. I’m convinced that every single forgiveness is on the heels of some kind of grief – grief over loss of something or someone, whether it’s trust or love or life itself. That’s just the kind of thinking I do when I see a light come on at 2:47 a.m. and hear the flush of a toilet. Because toilets make me think of all the crap, and the flush makes me think of forgiveness. Today’s poem as part of The Stafford Challenge is a list poem of things forgiven along the way.
A 3 a.m. Forgiveness List Poem Because I Couldn’t Sleep
*for those dishes she’d have wanted me to have
*for that jewelry box haunting
*for that remorseless tractor
*for that church drama walkout
*for the abandonment
*for all that vamoosing and skedaddling with so much business left undone
*for that texting tailgating fender bender boy the day of the truck
*for that tuition promise unfulfilled
*for the black mold problem
*for not speaking up
*for weight, always weight, even before hello
*for that prideful stubbornness of not admitting
*for that underbus-throwing beanspilling to the aunt and uncle
*for that secret to the grave incident she pulled
*for that showerhead lock-changing liar
*for that ignorant political post and not just asking
*for number one and fifteen
*for the last of the milk
*for San Antonio and The Alamo
*for that near miss with the Mash tent
*for that phone bill
*for that Christmas of the candle throwing
*for general sheepishness
*for that stupid Longhorn sweet potato
*for that unforewarned dinner party
*for her impersonation at the jail
*for the absurdity of the Vacation Bible School casket
*for that sunrise tattoo suspicion
*for the credit card driveway
*for telling the mortician her gray nails were a perfect fit for her
*for spray painting the bumper
*for wrecking both our cars at once
*for driving across a Costa Rican raging river
*for dancing like a drunk fool to the live band on the porch of Mullet Bay
*for that ridiculous Porsche to impress that classless redhead
*for all the denial
*for seven storage rooms since 2016
*for seven storage rooms, period
*for every last damn thing in those storage rooms
*for going down that road with the Running Ws
*for staying on the boat
*for buying flowers
*for not buying flowers
*for acting like he knew all about that wooden wine box
*for writing scarce and highly-sought after and rare as hen’s teeth in the front cover of every silverfish-infested book and brandishing them as gold
*for preaching instead of coming to my graduation
*for “you need to clean the john” and saying he’d clean the cobwebs
*for leaving us at Disney World
*for that Moonie on Bourbon Street with the candy
*for asking if this was Oxford a in a pitch black Subway train in England
*for no pictures
*for no Hospice when it was long overdue
*for asking if she’d brushed her teeth when it was clear she hadn’t, and then I had to forgive myself too for considering all the places I could have put his toothbrush before he used it again
*for showing up to preach in a leather vest like he knew how to be some kind of motorcycle gangster on the death of a friend
*for the rain off the roof in a styrofoam cup
*for nearly killing Mom with a jack-knifed trailer
*for feeding her steak when she couldn’t swallow
*for the many promises he wouldn’t leave her and the neighbors finding her fallen off the steps in the yard
*for that pair of discovery sunglasses he mistook for revelation
*for acting like that stinger was a lie when it was a proven truth
*for Aaron’s sick wife in the church foyer and the twin sister I don’t have
*for those obscene squirrel pups that could have cost him his reputation
*for not forgiving what should have been
*for forgiving too soon what should not have been
Common Threads 
Wooosh! That is quite a list. No wonder you couldn’t sleep. I hope it helped to get it all down. Forgiveness is certainly what he would give you and leave with you, forever.
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