The author writes about the emotion she feels when she picks her son up from summer camp.
Courtesy of Lindsay Karp
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 campMy 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 magicalYesterday, 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.
