Monday Mourning -- A Strange Feeling...

As of today, Bethany has gone a week farther into her junior year than Hannah ever did.  True, Hannah did not attend school very much during her junior year, but up until the date of her death, she was enrolled as a student at Magnet Cove High School.

It's hard to explain how strange it feels to know that my younger daughter has now surpassed my older daughter.  My girls were three grades apart in school; and as it happened, they were never in the same school building at the same time.  They had always looked forward to Hannah's senior year and Bethany's ninth grade year, when they would finally have been in the high school together.  That never happened, because Hannah did not make it through February of her junior year.

Now Bethany is in March of her junior year.  And it just feels strange.  Don't get me wrong...I am overjoyed that Bethany is with us...that she's healthy, that she's enjoying school and athletics, and that she's doing so well in so many ways.  I am so thankful for that!  It's just that it doesn't seem right that she has passed up her sister.  There's something that feels so unnatural about it.

She's still younger than Hannah was at this point in her junior year.  Hannah had an October birthdate, so she was 17 for almost all of her junior year.  Bethany, on the other hand, has a June birthdate, so she won't turn 17 until after her junior year.  I'm sure it will really feel strange when Bethany actually becomes older than Hannah.  Who ever thinks their younger child will someday be older than their older child?

I have to remind myself that Hannah is ageless now ... She lives beyond the constraints of time.  Seriously, how cool is that?  And, as competitive as Hannah was academically (and believe me, she was!), I don't think she minds a bit that her baby sister has passed her up!