“Mom, I am going to miss you” he said through tears as he stood by my bed.

“Oh baby, I am going to miss you too” I said as I sat up and gave him a hug. 

We walked slowly back towards his room as I rubbed his shoulder. It was the night before I was leaving for a business trip, a training that I had desperately wanted to complete and had gotten the opportunity to attend. My heart hurt because I had never been away from them for a week before and I knew that it would be just as hard on them as it was on me. 

I crawled into bed with him and got comfortable. He put his arm across mine and closed his eyes. We lay there chatting in the dark with our eyes closed. We spoke about how lucky we were that I get to work from home and that I get to spend so much time with him and his brothers. We spoke about the fact that I changed jobs with my oldest was born because I realized that being a mom was lifegiving for me and that I would only get one chance at it. We spoke about how I continued to pursue my dreams yet I made it a priority to be their mom and their world. We spoke about the fact that he GETS to miss me this week which might feel bad in the moments but the other way of looking at it is that we have such a deep bond and such a great relationship that his heart hurts when I am gone and that is much better than not being impacted by me going away for the week because it would mean that we didn’t have that kind of bond and connection. He was silent for a while and then said “I am glad that I will miss you then”. I lay there with tears flowing down my cheeks, trying not to let him know that I was crying as I listened to him drift off to sleep. I lay in silence and felt the whole experience fully, allowing myself to truly feel the depth of love that my son has for me and also fully feel that I earned that love because of the way that I love him.