When I look back over pictures of our family life, I find that my face does not show up in photographs nearly as often as the kids.

And while that’s okay at some level, it’s not okay on another level.

Obviously there will be more pictures of kids growing up than of mom growing old.

But I should appear in some of our family life – shouldn’t I?

See.  I have an incredibly difficult time finding actual photographic evidence of my own mother’s existence.

Like – there’s Christmas photos of messy-haired Lacey and goofy-grinning brothers around the Christmas tree.  Photos of Douglas riding a horse sporting his giant mini Stetson.  Danny and Dean bringing a lamb to the nursing home residents.  Our shocked faces the year Dad bought us a pinball machine for Christmas.  Me styling in my purple-with-white-hearts leg warmers and matching sweater set.  Graduations.  Weddings.

But where is Mom?

Maybe she was taking the picture – but, honestly – in the case of our mom, probably not.  She was a notoriously bad photographer.  And we weren’t raised in the digital world where a bad photo is only a waste of a few seconds and a swipe of your finger deletes the mistake.  We’re talking you take the film to the drug store.  You pay to the develop the film.  You wait a week.  You get back a roll of pictures.  You anticipate the memories.  You see thumbs and black spots and faces cut off from bodies.  So.  Yeah.  She probably wasn’t snapping the picture.

My mom hated to have her picture taken.  We’ve got the snapshots with her hand up to prove it.  Plus, the memory of her always avoiding the camera.

Listen.  I don’t enjoy getting my picture taken.  I’m not a selfie person and even typing the word selfie makes me cringe a little inside.  I have features on my face that are not my favorite and whenever I see a picture of me I am tempted to critique the thirty-two things I wish I could change about my appearance.

But I want my kids to know that I was in their lives and in their pictures.  So when they hold the camera and point it in my direction, I refuse to hold my hand in front of my face or to back away from the lens or to say, “Wait a minute – let me fix my hair.”

What’s more – I want to be smiling in those photos.

You know, like – really smiling.

Here’s a secret, friends.

We’ve all got flaws.

Stuff we don’t like and stuff we wish wasn’t true about our bodies or our faces or our hair or our whatever.

I’ve got a small stack.  One of them is my smile.  I don’t like it.  It’s my teeth.  They just aren’t my favorite.  So for years I have tried to smile without showing my teeth.  It’s just become a habit.  The way I smile now.  But lately – and intentionally – I have been trying to smile without thinking of what type of smile it is that I am showing.

As in – when I take pictures I am trying to just smile the moment.  If that ends up showing teeth – then fine.  Just fine.

I don’t want to keep editing my look.  Editing my face in my mind before I am ready for the click of the camera.

I just want to smile.  To be happy.  To stand with my kids or my friends or my dog or whatever I am posing with and smile for the sake of smiling.

And I really think you should try it too.

Quit holding the phone at just the right angle when you’re making a goofy face with your kids or memorializing a memory.

Quit taking forty-two pictures and scrolling endlessly through them and zooming in close to make sure you look acceptable before you add that photo to your Instagram feed.

Just smile and laugh and click and share without all the mental drama and the am-I-good-enough mind games that we trip ourselves up with.

Be in the picture.  Smile with your real face.  Laugh with your mouth wide open if you dare.  Don’t look for chin rolls or your best angle or the way your hair is parted or the wrinkles emerging around your eyes.

I guarantee your kids aren’t looking for that stuff.   And they won’t be looking for that stuff forty years from now.

They’ll just be looking for you.

That’s what they’ll want then.

And that’s what they want now.

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