My son graduates from high school this Saturday. Normally, you’d have a graduation ceremony at high school and maybe a celebration at home afterwards, but for our family it’s a little different. One difference is that I homeschool, so the ceremony will be held at our house. The second difference is that my son’s chosen profession means he’ll be leaving home in a matter of months. Thus, the graduation ceremony is also a send-off party of special magnificence.

This life-altering milestone for my first-born is one my head is still trying to wrap around. I’ve found myself reflecting more and more as the date draws near on the years spent raising him and wondering how they flew by so fast. It took four consecutive days to bring him into this world, two days under induced labor and two in real labor. By the end, we were in rough shape and an emergency c-section was needed in order for us both to survive. Under my drug-induced state, the first time I saw him I thought they’d swapped babies on me. He had jet black hair, black eyes, and weighed nearly a whopping ten pounds. When I stood with the other new moms at the window overlooking the newborns in their hospital cribs, they would all point to mine in shock. “Yes,” I’d say proudly. “That sumo wrestle baby is mine.”

Before he was even out of my womb, it was obvious my son was a go-getter. At my 20-week ultrasound, he actually tried to fight the scanner when it woke him up from his nap. I’ll never forget the look of shock on the technician’s face when my son tried to kick whatever it was disturbing his sleep. At three months old he was sitting up and at nine months he was running at full speed through the house. His first word, before Dada or Mama, was squirrel, because why not rise to the challenge? He spoke full sentences before most kids were walking. Having been a preschool teacher in the past and having worked specifically with infants and toddlers, I had never seen the like, and I can honestly say, I still haven’t. Every challenge he faced he eagerly met head on.

I spent most of his younger years running after him and trying to keep him alive. When he was one and a half we had to switch him to a toddler bed because he’d figured out how to climb out of his crib. There was also an instance when climbed his changing table, fell in between it and his dresser, and got wedged on top of his diaper pail, yelling out when he realized he was stuck, “Danger, Mama! Danger!” In that same year, while I was heavily pregnant with his sister, he ran straight into a pool with no lifeguard on duty and promptly sunk to the bottom. I had to waddle over and jump in to save him. He had a huge smile on his face afterwards and thought it was great fun. At two years old, while I was taking a two-minute pregnant potty break, he got the idea of pulling out his dresser drawers to make stairs in order to climb up so he could reach the top.

At two and a half he reached over the counter while I was preparing breakfast and tipped a measuring cup of grits into his eyes. They instantly soaked up and refused to wash out. He was screaming and in incredible pain, and I couldn’t hold him down long enough to try and flush them out properly, so I ended up having to call 911. “You heard correctly,” I said to the operator on the phone who thought I was joking. “He has grits in his eyes and I can’t get them out.” In the end, it took three adult EMT men to hold him down and flush his eyes out. How he didn’t have permanent eye damage after all of that is beyond me. At age three during a trip to beach he ran straight into the ocean without any fear or any knowledge of how to swim. Again, he was pulled out sputtering with a huge smile.

My son’s love for nature and the water only grew as he got older, and thankfully he eventually learned how to swim without endangering his life in the process. Some of his favorite books were about animals, reptiles, and the ocean. Perhaps it was because when he was born we lived on an island, and in the first week of his life, I dipped his toes in the ocean. Whatever the reason, he pursued an interest in marine biology throughout middle-school and in his high school years joined the United States Naval Sea Cadet Corps. It was through that experience, he found a career path that aligned with all of his interests.

Come this summer, he will be enlisting in the United States Coast Guard. To say I’m proud would be a gross understatement. It is the perfect fit for him, combining his love for his country, his endless amounts of energy, and his passion for the ocean. As a mother, it’s hard to describe the spectrum of emotions that have been revolving around my heart this past year. Knowing that it was my last year homeschooling him and that once he graduated and turned 18, he would be off on his own, has loomed over me every day. With his graduation only days away, though, I can no longer push reality aside.

How does one express the overwhelming pride and simultaneous grieve that hits you all at once? I don’t think it’s possible to put it into words. It’s the oddest thing for a parent to suddenly face the realization that all those years of raising their child have come to an end. Obviously, I’ll never stop being his parent, and I’ll always be here for him when he needs me, but it definitely won’t be the same from here on out. It’s a natural thing to grow up and strike out on your own, and I think it’s just as natural for a parent to go through the ups and downs of that change as it is for the child to adjust to life as an adult.

In a few months my first-born will be fledging the nest. It will be the hardest, proudest moment I’ll have ever had. I’m proud of his accomplishments, of the man he has become, and of the courageous career choice he’s made. I’m also proud that I had a hand in that, especially seeing him safely through his wild-child days. Those are memories I’ll never stop cherishing. I wouldn’t trade these last 18 years for anything.