Through a Mother’s Lens

There are moments as a mother when time seems to fold in on itself. When the child you once knew and the person standing in front of you somehow exist in the very same moment. I had one of those moments watching my son walk ahead of me on an overgrown trail through the wetlands of Florida.

He had his camera in his hands with a new lens we had rented just for this trip. You could see his excitement as he moved confidently through a place we had never been before. His eyes searched the trees and grasses, listening for the flutter of wings or the familiar call of the bird he had come so far hoping to photograph. There was such purpose in the way he moved. Such confidence. He believed the bird was there somewhere. He knew it was, waiting to be discovered. I think a part of him trusted that God would place it within the path of his camera lens at exactly the right moment. 

I watched him for a while from behind. And then I had to stop and capture the moment. For just a split second, I caught a glimpse of the little boy who used to be there, right where this young man now stood. My heart caught with that strange little ache motherhood sometimes brings, the kind that is somehow both gratitude and grief. Because standing before me was this strong, confident young man, and yet I could so clearly see the little boy who once held a camera that seemed far too big for his hands. 

I still remember his first camera. It was navy blue and seemed like it should have been complicated for someone so small. But somehow, it wasn’t. His little hands seemed to understand it almost instinctively. He would lift it to his face and capture things the rest of us might have walked right past. Even then, he noticed. He noticed the tiny things. The beautiful things. The things hidden in corners and trees and skies. And now, all these years later, there he was again. Camera in hand. Only the camera didn’t look too big anymore. Somehow, when I wasn’t looking, his hands had grown. That little boy had become a young man. 

I wanted to pause time. I wanted to record everything about that moment so I could come back to it someday. I wanted to remember his hair and his mismatched outfit. His untied shoes and dirty socks. The camera resting so naturally in his hands. I wanted to remember the humidity clinging to us and the wildness of the trail stretching ahead. But more than anything, I wanted to remember his eyes. There was wonder in them. Awe. Discovery. Determination. The same things I had seen in them when he was little.

I watched his stride as he boldly walked forward on a trail he had never traveled, into a place that, until that moment, had been undiscovered by him. There was no hesitation. Only curiosity about what might be around the next bend. And suddenly I wondered where all those years had gone. Where was the little boy who wandered through childhood with such innocence, asking a thousand questions and dreaming impossibly big dreams? The little boy who wanted to try everything, know everything, discover everything? 

He wasn’t gone at all. He was right there in front of me. He was simply taller now. His shoes were bigger. His stride was longer. His questions were changing. But the wonder was still there. 

My son has always reminded me to wonder. To wander. To look a little closer. To notice what other people might miss. To create. To try new things. To long for discovery and to get lost in the magnificence of God’s creations so carefully placed around us. 

There, on an overgrown trail in the wetlands of Florida, wet from the heavy, humid air, covered in mosquitoes, I realized I wasn’t only watching my son search for a bird. I was watching him become. And somehow, at the very same time, I was remembering everything he had been. 

That is one of the most tender parts of motherhood. We are given the privilege of seeing all the versions of our children at once. The world may see the young man confidently walking down the trail, camera in hand. But a mother can still see the little boy underneath it all, the one with the camera that was too big and endless questions, certain there was something wonderful waiting just beyond what he could see.

For a moment, I wished I could turn my own camera toward time itself. I wanted to capture his hair. The camouflage shirt. The untied shoes and dirty socks. The determined stride. That beautiful look of wonder in his eyes. I wanted to save it all. Because I know now how quickly these ordinary moments become sacred memories.

That was what God was showing me that day. My son was searching through his lens for one of God’s creations, while I stood behind him looking through a different kind of lens looking at the miracle God allowed me to create. His lens was searching for a bird. Mine was searching for the little boy. And somehow, God let us both find what we were looking for. 

There he was. My little boy. My young man. Both of them standing on the same trail. 

God is in the details of our lives. The wings hidden among the branches. The unfamiliar trails. The dirty shoes. The growing hands wrapped around a camera. The fleeting moments we wish we could hold forever. 

Canyon was completely present on that trail. Nothing else mattered. Because of his stillness, because of his commitment to nature, he heard her. The call of the bird he had hoped and prayed to find that day. He followed that beautiful sound and he found her. A Florida scrub jay found only in Florida. They are small, threatened and often difficult to find. But he found her. Canyon found her. And I found him. I watched. I listened to the clicking of his camera and I saw something priceless, the view of a child through a mother’s lens. 

There is no greater gift than being a mother and being allowed to witness the wonder and awe in our children’s eyes as they discover this beautiful world God created for them. Thank you, God, for giving him eyes that still know how to wonder. And thank you for giving me a mother’s eyes, a lens that somehow captured a timeless, precious moment no camera ever truly could. 

Thank you, God, for the Florida Scrub Jay’s song.

I love you, Canyon!