When Archer got sick, I became hard on myself for not getting enough pictures of him while he was healthy. When Archer passed, I became harder on myself for this.

I have a few photos of Archer and me, but a ton of him with Theo. I think that is because they genuinely were buddies, and Archer loved being with his daddy. I’m thankful for their bond. However, I was saddened when I started to look through photos and didn’t have many with Archer.

When we were looking through photos for Archer’s birthday, Theo had been looking at pictures on his phone to see if there were any I wanted to be printed. To my surprise, Theo had been taking photos of Archer and me. One that hit hard was when Archer, Theo, and I were all in bed, and there Archer and I were sleeping. (Theo was awake, and everyone was very safe).

My heart just exploded with joy, and tears ran down my face. I had never seen this photo, and I’m thankful Theo captured the moment.

Since then, I have still been upset that I never captured enough photos of Archer until I finally looked at the dates of the pictures on my phone. I have photos from almost every day of Archer’s life. Of course, I missed a few, but I finally feel relieved that I have so many photos, and I know Theo has more to add.

My photos are backed up in like three places to ensure that my photos of Archer will never be taken from me. Sometimes the little things can feel so big when you know you can never recreate pictures or memories of someone who is no longer in this world.

Today, I will be happy in the memories and photos of Archer I have been blessed with.