When Young Sheldon airs its final episodes on Thursday, May 16, it will say goodbye to one of TV’s most memorable (and lovable) characters.

Sheldon Cooper may be a once-in-a-lifetime genius, but for viewers who have followed him since The Big Bang Theory premiered in September 2007, he’s long been surprisingly relatable, even endearing in his lifelong quest, not just to reach the pinnacle of intellectual greatness but to belong and be loved.

“It [Sheldon’s story] shouldn’t be something that people would really relate to, but it relates to so many people from so many age ranges,” Iain Armitage told PEOPLE in February. “Pretty much everyone, no matter who you are, can somewhere relate to at least some themes of this show. Everyone kind of has feelings of maybe feeling out of place or who are kind of like Sheldon. You don’t have to be a genius to sometimes have a hard time connecting with people.”

Here are nine of the most memorable moments from Sheldon’s TV journey.

Sheldon takes his mittens off to hold his dad’s hand

In Young Sheldon’s series premiere, simply entitled “Pilot,” Mary (Zoe Perry) asked the family to pray at the table before they dig into dinner, but Sheldon insisted on wearing mittens because he’s afraid of catching other people’s germs.

“[Sheldon] can hold hands with his family. It won’t kill him,” George (Lance Barber) said.

“We don’t know that,” Sheldon responded.

One afternoon, George spoke with Sheldon, chiding him for telling on his classmates. To hammer home his point, George tells his son about how he was fired from a “real good coaching job” for telling on colleagues who were breaking the rules and how he was still “mostly angry” and a “little sad” about the incident.

At dinner that night, Sheldon decided to take off his mitts before holding his dad’s hands
when it’s time for the Cooper clan to say grace.

“That was the first time I held my father’s hand,” Sheldon admitted via voiceover.

Sheldon sends his work to NASA 

When a NASA employee visited Sheldon’s class in a Young Sheldon season 1 episode entitled “A Patch, a Modem, and a Zantac,” things got awkward as the employee began discussing the space agency’s plans to send a man to the moon. Sheldon offered the employee some direct feedback, which the employee shut down by giving him a NASA patch so his “mom can put it on” his backpack.

Sheldon, never one to be deterred, spent over a month working on complex math equations and sent his work to NASA. After waiting (and waiting) for NASA to get back to him, George finally drove Sheldon, with the family in tow, to Houston to give NASA employees a “little talking to” and “straighten things out.”

 Sheldon hosts a listening party — and no one shows up

In Young Sheldon‘s season 2 episode “A Swedish Science Thing and the Equation for Toast,” Sheldon invited people to attend a listening party in the family’s garage to hear that year’s announcement of Nobel Prize winners. When no one showed, Sheldon was understandably disappointed and believed he was “destined to be alone.” But in a wonderful nod to Sheldon’s future, viewers are shown a montage of The Big Bang Theory‘s characters at that time

While it will be years until everyone meets, it’s a sweet reminder that Sheldon, who will one day earn a Nobel Prize of his own, will be anything but lonely.