Taking a family picture was always a challenge when I was growing up.

I am one of 12 children and cleaning and dressing up that many kids was not an easy task for my mother. Besides, with 10 of the 12 kids being boys, there was the added challenge of getting them to sit still long enough for someone to snap a picture.

I can still recall how my mother - her index finger raised in authority as she scolded us into submission - worked quickly to tuck in shirts and wipe smudges from our cheeks as she lined us up before the camera.

There has always been some resistance to my mother's picture-taking efforts, because it always was a drawn-out affair.

There was usually someone slow to line up, and the waiting invariably led to squabbles among the siblings. But, like most mothers determined to capture their children's likenesses for posterity, Mom persisted.

The first of the family portraits was taken just weeks after my youngest brother, Gary, was born in June 1960. That photograph - of my father holding his youngest and the other sons all neatly dressed in starched white shirts and ties and arranged by height around him - was shot by a photographer from the local newspaper. The picture and an article were published as part of the newspaper's Father's Day coverage, and the headline read: "Father's Day Always Major Event for 12 Children in Sidney Family."

I was reminded of our family's picture-taking ordeal this past weekend, as my brothers and sister gathered in our hometown for my niece's wedding. It had been four years since we had been together, and, like other homecomings, cameras were brought out to capture the moment.

In a snapshot taken when we were together four years ago, my mother is proudly seated in the midst of her grown children. The cameras clicked away, but as usual, someone complained about having to take "another family picture."

In one of the photographs, Mom can be seen with her raised index finger, reminiscent of her longstanding effort to keep us all together for a picture.

As we gathered in the vestibule of the church before the wedding service this past weekend, though, there was no raised finger, as Mom can no longer command her brood that way. There also was no resistance from my siblings either, as all of us are more aware of the tentative nature of our family unit.

Two-and-a-half years ago, Mom suffered a severe stroke. Because she is confined to a wheelchair and somewhat confused by her new situation, she had never left the nursing home where she now lives.

Since the wedding service was held in the same church she attended for more than 60 years, the family decided to take her to the service. As Mom was wheeled into the vestibule of the church, we gathered around her for a family picture, eager to capture all of us together again, yet painfully aware that this may be Mom's final family photo.