My husband and I have a daily ritual, one he started a few years back when we began storing our photos digitally. Each day, around 11 AM, he gets a notification that pops up ‘on this day’ photos. He’ll send me a few snapshots of our former life and we’ll ooh and ahhh about our sweet babes or our wrinkle free foreheads before moving on to whatever else our day holds.

Most of these pictures are candid shots and rather joyful. Precious, cherub faced babies at a birthday party. Christmas morning. Pre-school programs. Summer trips. Most mornings I scan the daily memory and recall the moment, tenderly remembering what we were doing, where we were going and how we felt. It’s a sweet bit of moments past.

There are other pictures, however, that hit me in a different way. Moments captured on my very own camera yet I cannot recall where I fit into the frame. I know I was present because I remember picking out the pale pink, collared jammies for the train ride with Santa. Matching bow also carefully selected because I knew pictures would be taken. Hot chocolate stain on the collar where big brother bumped her. Cheeks rosey from both cold winter air and excitement.

I remember the scene. I remember everyone else in their place. Like actors in a movie, I can picture the scene perfectly. Yet I cannot remember my own lines. And when this happens, I find myself asking the same thing.

Did I love her well enough?

While I see the scene playing out before me, I’m uncertain of my part. I am even less certain I played it well. Did those tiny faces get the abundance of a mother who absolutely adored them? Or did they feel the pressure of a woman who didn’t have it all together and often worried about it to the extreme?

Our family grew from two to six people in under seven years. The rapid fire growth was beautiful. A gift from God, no doubt. But the change to my life (our lives) often left me wondering what on earth I was doing. My insecurity came out in controlling. Managing. Structuring. Planning. I often wonder if they ever saw the carefree side of their mother. Or if that side even existed.

A decade later, looking through ‘day in the life‘ photos, I no longer care much about coordinating bows or matching pajamas. Most mornings our youngest is wearing mismatched pajamas, if any at all. The passing of time is apparent and this daily photo only reinforces the fact my littles are not anymore.

Did I love them enough?

We moms are experts at nothing quite like mom guilt. My own brand of mom guilt resides firmly in the period of time when I had three children under four years of age. Primarily because I don’t remember those years. I cannot recall too many details so I am left to wonder how I fared. How they fared. What they might take from that segment of time.

Did they feel the weight of my love?

To any other mother loving and doting and diapering and feeding and nurturing a child, I would gently guide you away from this ridiculous line of self questioning. Of course they knew. How could they NOT feel the extent of your love and adoration for them? It would be impossible to miss the fullness of your feelings.

But for me, and perhaps for you, it is often easiest to be our own worst critic and to let uncertainty creep in and discolor our precious ‘on this day’ memories.

I have no easy fix for any of us but in recent days, in an attempt to grapple with my former, forgotten self, I have tried to be exceptionally mindful. Of my presence, my intentionality, my goal. Which I imagine is the same for most of you.

To love our children. For them to feel our love. For them to know they are known.

Yesterday my son and I were hurrying to make an appointment. We were walking quickly when I felt him pulling back and urging me to look at something. We had somewhere to be and I could feel the pull of time.

But just as quickly I felt the real pull of time. The time that matters. The time we can’t recover.

I paused. We looked. Together. He was content and on we went. Before we did, I made a mental note to remember I had loved him well in that moment. I acknowledged the chance to hurry on and push through but the choice made to stop and talk about rain puddles in the parking lot.

It’s a small step in a big race but I’m hopeful it will allow me to look back on these days, ten years from now, and remember my part in the scene. To remember my lines. Sure, buddy, show me your favorite puddle. To feel the assuredness he knew the weight of my affection and depth of my love.

On this day.