In honor of Mother’s Day being just around the corner, today I am blogging about something that is a little near and dear to my heart.
Let me first just say, I am one of those people that completely took my mother for granted when I was a child and into my teenage years. She was my mom, she was expected – no, required to do the things she did for me because she was my mom. Laundry. Cooking. Especially cooking. *Gasp* “Mom, you made me APPLE oatmeal this morning? How could you? I hate apple oatmeal. I only like it with brown sugar.” Then I would walk out the door without eating breakfast at all like a stupid stubborn teenager. What I failed to appreciate at the time was that my WORKING mother, got out of bed an hour earlier than she needed to to wake me up, make sure me and my siblings were all ready to go to school, and make breakfast even though she was probably INSANELY exhausted. (much like I am every single morning). I went along like this essentially, my whole life. Looking back, I was basically the most unappreciative teenager EVER. It’s a little ridiculous, and obviously I am crazy embarrassed about the way I behaved.
I became a mother in the summer of 2008. My little baby Charli was born. I was awake all night, changing poopy diapers, feeding a cranky baby – as every new mother does. It’s exhausting. It was one of the most eye opening experiences of my life. I would break into tears SO often because it was just the beginning of a realization of how much my mother did for me. Every. single. day. This was the beginnings of my reflections of how much of a little brat I was to her. How she handled it with grace. Picturing my mother rocking me to sleep in the dead of night. How I would secretly try to NEVER be like her, but now, picturing how I wanted to raise my kids exactly like she raised me.
So many of you know that in the spring of 2007, my mother became very ill. She had a brain aneurism that burst and she was hospitalized. Put in long term care. She survived the bursting aneurism and many many strokes and seizures – but she lost the ability to communicate – and we will never know if she could see – but we believe she lost her sight as well. My mother did not get to be with me when I delivered my 2 baby girls. That was the hardest thing for me to wrap my brain around, and the hardest thing for me to come to terms with when I delivered them. I wanted my mommy.
My mother passed away in July of 2011. While we all believed it was a huge relief for her to pass on and be with her Heavenly Father, it was hard for all of us to handle, just as is any passing of a loved one.
Now I tell you all this not for pity, but maybe so you’ll understand a huge reason photography is so important to me. When I was a senior in High School I had my senior pictures done like most seniors do – and my photographer happened to snap a picture of my mother and I during a lull in the photo shoot.
{photo credit – Emilyn Penfield, Chugiak Alaska}
This picture is one of my favorite pictures ever. It is one of the only pictures I have of my mom and I. Moms don’t like being in front of the lens. It’s just a fact. We are past our prime – we feel like we don’t have the bodies that we used to. Our kids destroyed our figures, the list goes on and on. But ladies, let me tell you – GET IN FRONT OF THE LENS. Get in front of the lens with your kids. They may not know it now, but I can tell you FOR SURE from the bottom of my heart, that one day those photos WILL be their most treasured possessions.
I am a mother now – and day and night I am constantly worrying about my children, taking care of them, making sure they’re healthy, eating a balanced diet, having healthy bowel movements (seriously. I know, TMI. But yeah, for reals.) and my appreciation for my mother grows and grows every single day.
Take pictures WITH your kids with your iPhone, or your point and shoot, every family moment counts and you can’t afford to hire someone to take your photo at every turn.
No matter the day or the night, I look to my memories of my mother for inspiration on how to raise my children, as I’m sure every mother does regardless of whether her own mother is alive or has passed. Our mothers, here, or in heaven, inspire us every single moment whether we realize it or not. Photographs are important memories that should not be overlooked or forgotten in the digital age. Don’t take photos for granted. Take them. Cherish them.
Mothers are the most important.
Catie
