By Jennifer Jester-Madrigal

This month, my oldest child, Isaiah, turns 16; which is amazing since I am only 29.

This means that he will soon be driving, and that my hold on him is slipping a little further away each day.  Soon he will throw his bags in the car and take himself to practice and bring himself home. He’ll get a job and go to work and become more responsible and “man-like.”

Every day he gets closer to becoming a grown man, and further from my baby who used to dress up in his Buzz Lightyear costume and zoom around the house. The baby face is gone, replaced with fuzz, and often I am startled by the deep voice that comes out when he talks. He’s taller than me, by a lot, and I have to stand on my toes to kiss his cheek. He still loves his momma; he still kisses and hugs me goodbye.  And he has grown into such a responsible and overall good kid, but how is it possible he is already 16?

Isaiah came screaming into this world as we watched the tragedy of the Columbine High School Shooting unfold on TV. He was born on the day of those shootings, April 20, 1999; a horrific day where two teens gunned down their peers, and the world was forever changed. Parents lost their children and I met mine for the first time. I never forgot that, and I have always known he was a gift.

Once I brought my first child into the world and became a momma, my personal world began to rotate around him. From the instant I knew I was going to be a mom, my children have always come first. My sons are the center of my universe, but Isaiah will always be the one who made me a momma first. As a young mom of just 19, I was terrified, but also confident that he and I would go on some crazy adventures together, and we have. He has been my baby, my little boy, my little man, and my oldest son who I lean on to help me with his younger brothers. He watches over them, torments them and leads them. Isaiah has an especially amazing bond with his littlest brother, Nicholas, who is handicapped.

We walked the beach last weekend, and I watched Isaiah throw his brother on his back so that he could take him to climb the rocks and see the tide pools. He helped him over the rocks, pointed out the shells, signed “water” to him, and held his hand. I watched him hug his little bro, and kiss his cheeks like I always do. As parents, these are the moments we remember; these are the moments that remind us we are doing okay.

It has been a rough year, but Isaiah is getting through it and he’s growing as a person. Life is never how you expect it to be or how you plan it to be, it’s how God wants it to be. My kids illustrate this to me on a daily basis and I have almost made peace with that. I’m excited to see where his future leads, but nervous to let him fly on his own. Video game talks have been replaced with talks about college and the future, and I know these childhood days are winding to a close.

But, I choose to embrace this season. To really breathe it in and enjoy these moments because soon they will be just memories – and, of course, opportunities to teasingly blackmail him when his future wife comes along.