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The
Smell of Rain
A cold March wind danced around
Dallas as the doctor walked
into Diana Blessing's small hospital room. It was the dead
of
night and she was still groggy from surgery. Her husband,
David, held her as they braced themselves for the latest
news.
That rainy afternoon, March 10, 1991, complications
had
forced Diana, only twenty-four weeks pregnant, to undergo
emergency surgery. At twelve inches long and weighing only
one
pound, nine ounces, Danae Lu arrived by cesarean delivery.
They already knew she was perilously premature.
Still, the
doctor's soft words dropped like bombs. "I don't think
she's
going to make it," he said as kindly as he could. "There's
only
a 10 percent chance she will live through the night. If by
some
slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very
cruel
one." Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the
doctor described the devastating problems Danae could face
if
she survived.
She would probably never walk, or talk, or see. She
would
be prone to other catastrophic conditions from cerebral
palsy to
complete mental retardation, and on and on. Through the
dark
hours of morning as Danae held onto life by the thinnest
thread,
Diana slipped in and out of drugged sleep. But she was
determined that their daughter would live to be a happy,
healthy
young girl. David, fully awake, knew he must confront his
wife
with the inevitable.
David told Diana that they needed to talk about
funeral
arrangements. But Diana said, "No, that is not going to
happen.
No way! I don't care what the doctors say, Danae is not
going
to die. One day she will be just fine and she will be home
with us."
As if willed to live by Diana's determination, Danae
clung
to life hour after hour. But as those first rainy days
passed,
a new agony set in for David and Diana. Because Danae's
underdeveloped nervous system was essentially "raw," the
least
kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort, so they
couldn't
even cradle their tiny baby. All they could do, as Danae
struggled beneath the ultraviolet light, was to pray that
God
would stay close to their precious little girl.
At last, when Danae was two months old, her parents
were
able to hold her for the first time. Two months later, she
went
home from the hospital just as her mother predicted, even
though
doctors grimly warned that her chances of leading a normal
life
were almost zero.
Today, five years later, Danae is a petite but feisty
young
girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for
life. She shows no sign of any mental or physical
impairment.
But that happy ending is not the end of the story.
One blistering summer afternoon in 1996 in Irving,
Texas,
Danae was sitting in her mother's lap at the ball park
where her
brother's baseball team was practicing. As always, Danae
was
busy chattering when she suddenly fell silent. Hugging her
arms
across her chest, Danae asked her mom, "Do you smell that?"
Smelling the air and detecting a thunderstorm
approaching,
Diana replied, "Yes, it smells like rain."
Danae closed her eyes again and asked, "Do you smell
that?"
Once again her mother replied, "Yes, I think we're
about to
get wet, it smells like rain."
Caught in the moment, Danae shook her head, patted her thin
shoulder and loudly announced, "No, it smells like him. It
smells like God when you lay your head on His chest."
Tears blurred Diana's eyes as Danae happily hopped
down to
play with the other children before the rain came. Her
daughter's words confirmed what Diana and the rest of the
Blessing family had known all along. During those long
days and
nights of the first two months of her life, when her nerves
were
too sensitive to be touched, God was holding Danae on his
chest,
and it is His scent that she remembers so well.
By Nancy Miller
from Chicken Soup for the Christian
Family Soul
Copyright 2000 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen
No portion of this publication may be reproduced in
any manner whatsoever without prior written consent
from Chicken Soup for the Soul Enterprises, Inc.
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