Remember this. 

Being a mother is hands-down my greatest accomplishment, my fullest joy, and my reason for living. Nothing else has touched my heart or changed me as a person so profoundly. 

From what I’ve heard about my mother, she loved being my mom as well. She loved doing things with me and taking me places and watching me grow. She cheered me on and cried with me and wiped my tears and held me in the middle of the nights and prayed for me and was proud of me. She was there for all of my exciting firsts and took care of all my needs as I grew from newborn baby to little girl. She was the most important person in my life and I may very well have been the most important person in hers. 

And I can’t remember her. 

I can’t remember her voice or the way she would look at me or how she would hold me or any of the songs she would sing or the stories she would tell. I don’t remember the places we went or the things we did. Honestly, it feels like she barely existed. When people would find out my mom died and respond with an awkward “I’m sorry,” I always said it’s ok and I didn’t even miss her, and then I’d feel guilty because I was telling the truth. It’s hard to miss someone you can’t remember and it feels wrong to not be able to remember anything about your mother. 

Spencer is almost 16 months old. He is the most important person in my life (aside from Jordan), and I am the most important person in his. I am his source of comfort, his best friend, his personal chef, his round-the-clock caregiver. I wipe his nose and change his diapers and hold him all night and play until we drop. I take him places almost every day. Every moment with him is engraved in my memory and touches my heart in a way I can’t explain. He has had an immeasurable impact on me and I could never forget him. 

But I know when Spencer is older, he won’t remember these moments. He won’t remember our trips to the playground or the zoo, or the way we slept together in the recliner, or all of his firsts, or the songs we sang, or what it was like to nurse, or how he would run around butt naked after his baths. We will make new memories and our relationship will change over time. These memories of him as a baby, my most cherished memories, will quickly be forgotten about by my little boy. 

So I take pictures every day. I take LOTS of pictures and videos because I want to show him one day and I want help remembering. And if, God forbid, anything happened to me, I want him to have something to look back on and just maybe remember the person who was once his whole world.