How much difference could one life make?

Lucas Donovan on a walkabout with Grandpa.

I call him Little Bean. When he's a teenager, he's going to love me for it.

When my 43-year-old brother told me he and my sister-in-law were expecting, I thought, "expecting what?"

My family long ago gave up on babies. I've never married, so they weren't coming from me. My brother and his first wife, also, never had children. My parents were grandparentless. And, yes, we lived with heartache.

Things changed a few years ago when my brother remarried. His wife, Jody, had three young daughters from a previous marriage. So now our family had kiddos! I've loved being an aunt to these girls. But a new baby?

Nah. Never going to happen. And for years, it didn't.

Lucas and his daddy.

Life loves surprises.

On Valentine's Weekend 2016, I got a call from my brother late one night. "I need to talk to you," he said. "Something has happened."

Oh geez. Here we go. "Okay, what's going on?"

He blurts out, "We're expecting..."

I added the ellipsis (...) to the quote because that's how I heard it. I kept waiting for him to finish the sentence, while I quietly freaked out, 'How bad is it?! What could he possibly be expecting?'

Brendon, Jody, and Little Bean

Then it hit me. 

Ohhh....expecting.

Got it.

Every life starts small. 

Oh the nephew smooshiness. 

My brother gave me the delivery date and we laughed and cried and debated dimensions. We figured, at this stage, he was roughly the size of a pinto. Or a lima. So I nicknamed him Little Bean.

I wanted to mark the moment his life entered mine. But, also, to give him a nickname that would embarrass him for decades.

I did good.

Lucas with Mommy

Suddenly, this little guy, all by his little self and all before even being born, made me hope again. Dream again. Wonder if the impossible was, at times, possible because - for my family and for this moment - it was.

I laughed louder at jokes, cried harder at movies. I wasn't the one pregnant, but my hormones didn't know it.

This kid made me view any difficult day with less angst because, no matter what happened, life was still coming.

Life begats more life. 

Lucas loves Grandma cuddles. 

He's had a big impact for one little dude. His life has forever altered the lives of his parents, grandparents, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and the list will only go on.

One little boy.

One life.

Since the passage of Roe v Wade in 1973, we've lost 58.5 million lives to abortion.

I'll just leave that right there.

"The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: 

I am come that they might have life, 

and that they might have it more abundantly."

 John 10:10 KJV