I’m revisiting earlier lessons from my blog, and here’s a meditative list I could still say, with near accuracy, five years later in asking for my son’s forgiveness. I’m very grateful he’s putting on his own seat belt though:

1. Not understanding those things I think only you, your angels, and God can understand
2. Keeping you strapped into your car seat when all those tears fell, asking to be freed
3. Making you eat more than sweet potatoes and beans
4. Being less than patient and for moving too quickly more times than I’ve slowed down
5. Letting your mother make you wear shoes that were too small
6. Raising my voice and thinking that it would help you understand an instruction
7. Not forgiving the way you do, quickly and effortlessly
8. Leaving you in the room with all those relatives you didn’t know in Alabama that day
9. All those pictures we took
10. Having strong opinions…about everything
11. Not finding more ways to put you into the hands of people who love you well and consistently
12. The mistakes you’ll notice that I won’t
13. Being angry with you when you were really really little because you cried more than I knew to expect when we brought you home
14. The times I said you were a “miracle from the Lord” because it was true but didn’t really treat you that way
15. Failing to love your mother as much as possible to the best of my ability
16. My dullness when I was tired and too exhausted to enjoy your excitement about some random thing
17. Overlooking all those moments when you were trying to get me to see something I was too busy to notice
18. Not listening
19. Teaching you things by my example and my words which were wrong
20. For keeping this list so short.