When I became pregnant for the first time more than 15 years ago, a friend told me words that I have never forgotten: “Having children is like having your heart walking outside your body.” His words were sweet, but I still didn’t fully understand them.

When my son was born, those words came to life, but as a stay-at-home mom, he still hadn’t ventured beyond my sight, so I knew he was safe and sound in real time. A few years later we had another baby, and as my two children grew, these words came back to me often.

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

My son, now 15, has been going to sleepaway camp for five summers. When he leaves him, I say goodbye with a hug and hold on to that feeling of having him in my arms until we are together again. My husband and I drove down the hill, leaving a piece of me in the mountains. For four weeks, I go through life wondering what he is doing, if he brushes his teeth and eats vegetables and if he is happy being many miles from home. Everywhere I go, thoughts of him follow me, a reminder that I am not complete without him.

From his first summer, when the dining room unexpectedly burned to the ground on the third day, making national news and igniting a motherly anxiety he’d never known, to this summer when I had no doubt he’d love every moment, saying goodbye has gotten easier over time.

I no longer worry if he is happy or knows how to cover the corners of the bed with the fitted sheet, because he is more mature now and camp has become his favorite place on Earth. But while the delivery day has been transformed, the collection day has not. It’s still as magical as ever.

Pickup day is magical.

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

After living for a month with a piece of my heart many miles away with only photos to speak of his well-being (we wrote to him, but his responses were few), meeting again is like recovering that lost piece of myself.

We parked in a field between the lower and upper camp and began walking towards their cabin. As always, the campers savored their last moments together, remembering occasions so impactful that they had been etched in their memories for a lifetime. My eyes wandered back and forth from cabin deck to cabin deck, eagerly searching for that familiar face I had been missing.

So there he was, the missing piece of my puzzle. It’s been five years, and he’s grown a lot, but somehow that moment of reunification feels like the first time he ran up to me at preschool pick-up. I can’t run, and this time I’m much more excited than him, but still, having him with me again brings me back to balance.

My big, strong teenager wrapped his arms around me. And in that moment, I realized that there is 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 us both that no matter how old I get, I will always be there to come back.

Those words I heard years ago ring true

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

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