Some days are more memorable than others.  Some days serve as markers to immense changes in our lives.  Some days aren’t just any days.  In my life, this is one of those days.  25 years ago today I claimed a name that, until that exact remarkable moment, captured an utterly unknown dimension to my very being, my character and my experience – – – the name “Momma.”

It dawned on me a few months ago that this was the year my three daughters would reach the ages of 25, 21 and 18 respectively. Each of these ages carrying its own basket of additional independence, responsibility and opportunity. Each age carrying them further away from that miraculous moment their breaths began. Each age carrying them further away from their time with me.

It dawned on me a few months ago that this was the year my three daughters would reach the ages of 25, 21 and 18 respectively. Each of these ages carrying its own basket of additional independence, responsibility and opportunity. Each age carrying them further away from that miraculous moment their breaths began. Each age carrying them further away from their time with me.

Today I celebrate the marked joy that splendid moment created in my life a quarter of a century ago. That joy was repeated twice more – – – gifting me with three sweet lives to love, care for, cherish, pray for and watch with delight as they grew and developed into three splendid young women.

When I discovered I was expecting our first child, I began writing a journal to that new, unknown little person. I faithfully entered the progress, doctor’s visits, feelings and joyful anticipation of those nine months. After our baby girl was born, I wrote weekly, then monthly, letters to her to let her know how very much she was loved and how grateful we were to have her in our midst. I wrote shorter and fewer entries, due to the inevitable time constraints, in the journals for daughters #2 and #3 but managed to provide a bit of written proof of our recurrent and paralleled joy and excitement for and to them. I even began journals for the two little ones who never made it to their first breaths. I wanted our children to never doubt the excited eagerness we felt as we waited for them to join our family – and how incredibly happy and complete their arrivals made us. We wanted them to never question the blessings they are to us, to never doubt their treasured place in our world. I even managed to keep lipstick on through each labor so as we snapped those first pictures I could look cheerfully (even if tiredly) ready to meet and welcome them. May I add – – – I failed miserably at keeping baby books.

Two and a half decades have come and gone. Each day has been a precious and precarious balance of praise, patience, positivity, playfulness, peacemaking, prayer, pain and perseverance. Together we’ve had some “moments” that have been hard or harrowing, sometimes even harsh – but hopefully never harmful. As a family we’ve lived a poignant spectrum from fascination to exhaustion.

I thought I was the creative genius behind the expression “the days are long, but the years are short” when describing the slow, yet swift, passage of time for we mothers. I’ve seen it written since I originally said it – so apparently I wasn’t the first to think of it. Regardless, in the wisdom of hindsight, it so clearly expresses the last 25 years.

Truly, a day is but a blink. Some days I’ve blinked so fast their memories are lost forever. Some days are burned in my mind’s eye for eternity.

Today I’m going to savor the sweetness of the swiftness of the blinks of the “some days” over the past quarter  century, even the forgotten ones. On that “Some Day” 25 years ago I was graciously blessed with the title “Momma” and not one day since has ever been the same.

Thought to ponder: Do my children know the days I spend with them – even the “rough” or forgotten ones – are sweet gifts of time that I treasure?

Coming Next: It’s not what they do, it’s who they are!