More Growing Pains

So Jake is now five foot five, which is one inch taller than Cory was.  It boggles the mind.  I guess it would have been a little funny anyways if she were still here to see him standing taller than her, the same way I feel to be eye to eye with him.  How in the world did that happen? 

 But with her gone, it feels less funny and more sad.  It feels like a time warp, in which your oldest child who'd grown to her fullest height stopped existing before she could see her brother catch up to her or possibly even pass her up.  In a moment, your youngest child becomes your oldest living child, which never feels right, and feels more and more wrong the older he gets and the closer he gets to the age she was when she died.  How can this be?  What strange, horrible new world is this?

And you don't get to be amazed together to see the little baby Jacob who'd really belonged to you both since day one change into a young man right before your eyes. It's not the same when you can't share it with that little mother hen who loved him so dearly...when you can't say, oh my God, Cory, do you remember when he... and.... and...?

And while she was as tall as she'd ever be, you don't get to see her face subtly aging, her stance become a bit more confident, her mannerisms remaining  wholeheartedly Cory-Girl yet beginning to resemble those of a twenty-something young woman instead of a teen.

It will never feel right to live in a world without her.  Nothing that brings joy, even watching my second child grow, remains untainted by the gnawing pain of her absence.  

I still hate my Cory-less world.