The beginning of the end

Today is the first day of my oldest sons last year of school. Yesterday I cried about that through out the day. I remembered him as a baby sleeping on my chest while we lay together on the couch. Lulling me into sleep with his steady breathe. I remembered him when he was one and two playing the "I'm going to get you" game with him while my mother held him in her arms.
I remember him playing ninja turtles with his friends and trying to dig a hole to china out past the back fence when he was six. I remember when he locked himself in his room and wouldn't come out because he didn't want to go to junior high in a new town. I've been witness to his whole life and after this last year he will be considered a man. Next summer he will be old enough to vote and old enough to rent an apartment and old enough to go to college.
I cried when his voice changed and when I realized he was taller than I am. All those steps in life that slowly ease us to the point where we let go.
Today we begin a year of letting go and I don't know if I'm ready for it.
I'm so happy we made it this far and that my son will graduate from high school...A mile stone if there ever was one but I'm sad that the little boy who hid his head in Nana's shoulder and squealed with delight when I 'got him' is gone.
He lives only in my memory and that my friends is very sad.