No, I’m not “going to be” an aunt. My sister’s due date for
my nephew is today, yet, I’ve actually been an aunt for a while now. I never
got to know my first nephew, who left us before we had the chance to meet him.
And, the only interaction I’ve had with my soon-to-be-born nephew is to feel
him moving underneath his mother’s skin.
Yet, I am an aunt. From the moment of conception, he has
been my nephew. He has been a person. He has been loved. He will continue to be
so after his birth.
Our culture sometimes likes to use phrases like “embryo” or “fetus”
to imply that a baby before birth isn’t a person. However, these are just
stages of development. Infancy, toddler, childhood, pre-adolescence,
adolescence, and adulthood are all stages of growth and development as well.
Sometimes, I think we buy into our culture’s disregard for
unborn life when we make announcements like, “We’re going to be parents!” or, “I’m
going to be an aunt!” Hasn’t it already begun?
Or, why do we calculate our ages from our BIRTH-date as
though we weren’t truly alive before then? I understand that it’s difficult to
calculate a date of conception, but we can’t ignore the time spent, alive, in
the womb.
Indeed, God doesn’t discount it. We could go to Psalm
139:13, where the psalmist describes how God knit him together in the womb. Or,
we could go to Jeremiah 1:5 where God speaks of knowing us even before He knit
us together in the womb.
Unborn children are so much more than almost human. They are
God’s Creation, in His Image. My soon-to-arrive nephew has been made in the
Image of God. He is fearfully and wonderfully made.
Whether my nephew is born today, or tomorrow, or next week,
I am still and will still be an aunt. It won’t change. It’s not something we
can change with terminology or a different mindset.
It is simply True.
I am an aunt, and I am loving every minute of it.
