My friend told me something about parenting when I was pregnant. The truth didn’t hit me until my son went to camp.

• My friend told me something when I was pregnant for the first time that I never forgot.
• He said, “Having children is like having your heart walking around outside your body.”
• Those words have never felt more true than when my teen is at sleepaway camp.

When I became pregnant for the first time over 15 years ago, a friend offered me words I never forgot: “Having children is like having your heart walking around outside your body.” His words were sweet, but I didn’t fully understand them just yet.

When my son was born, those words came to life, but as a stay-at-home mother, he wasn’t yet venturing beyond my sight, so I knew he was safe and well in real time. We had another baby a few years later, and as both of my boys grew, these words returned to me often.

I missed my son in a whole new way when he was at sleepaway camp

My now-15-year-old has been going to sleepaway camp for five summers. At drop off, I say goodbye with a hug and hang onto that feeling of having him in my arms until we’re together again. My husband and I descend the hill in our car, a piece of myself left behind in the mountains. For four weeks, I move through life wondering what he’s doing, whether he’s brushing his teeth and eating his veggies, and if he’s happy being many miles from home. Everywhere I go, thoughts of him follow, a reminder that I am not whole without him.

From his first summer when the dining hall unexpectedly burned to the ground on day three, making national news and igniting a motherly anxiety I’d never known, all the way to this summer when I had no doubt he would love every moment, saying goodbye has become easier with time.

I no longer worry if he’s happy or if he knows how to pull the fitted sheet over the corners of his bed, because he’s more mature now, and camp has become his favorite place on Earth. But while drop-off day has transformed, pick-up day has not. It’s still just as magical as ever.

Pick-up day is magical

Yesterday, my husband and I arrived at the pavilion where my son’s trunk was loaded into our car, and as we drove up the hill towards the cabins, the feeling that hits me every summer on pickup day returned. I fought the happy tears welling in my eyes because no teenager wants to introduce his friends to his crying mother. I played it cool for him, but inside I was glowing.

After living a month with a piece of my heart many miles away with only pictures to speak of his well-being (we wrote to him, but responses from him were scarce), being reunited is like having that missing piece of myself returned.

We parked in a field between the lower and upper camp and began trekking toward his cabin. As always, campers were savoring their last moments together, reminiscing about occasions so impactful that they had been etched into their memories for a lifetime. My eyes wandered back and forth from cabin deck to cabin deck, anxiously searching for that familiar face I’d been missing.

Then, there he was, the absent piece of my puzzle. It’s been five years — and he’s grown so much — but somehow that moment of reunification feels like the first time he ran to me at preschool pickup. There’s no running — and I’m far more excited than he is, this time around — but, still, having him with me again returns me to my equilibrium.

My big, strong teenager wrapped his arms around me. And in that moment, I realized there’s nothing better than hugging your child on pickup day. It makes every toddler tantrum and teenage meltdown worth it. That hug dissolves every mother-son disagreement, and each time he wanted me at a distance because he considered me embarrassing. It reminds both of us that no matter how old he gets, I will always be there to return to.

Those words I heard years ago ring true

Those words my friend said to me before my son was born were precise. I felt them the day I left him at preschool for the first time and on the day we dropped him off at sleepaway camp for his first summer. But they became crystal clear when I received my first pickup day hug. My heart, that had been walking around outside my body, finally returned to my chest. And yesterday I felt it all over again.

My son is beginning high school this year, growing faster than I anticipated. I know every moment of his high school years won’t be easy, but I still have a handful of camp pick-up hugs to look forward to. And that makes the ups and downs of motherhood worth it.

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