A cold March wind danced around Dallas as the doctor walkedinto Diana Blessing's small hospital room. It was the dead ofnight 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 hadforced Diana, only twenty-four weeks pregnant, to undergoemergency surgery. At twelve inches long and weighing only onepound, nine ounces, Danae Lu arrived by cesarean delivery.
They already knew she was perilously premature. Still, thedoctor's soft words dropped like bombs. "I don't think she'sgoing to make it," he said as kindly as he could. "There's onlya 10 percent chance she will live through the night. If by someslim chance she does make it, her future could be a very cruelone." Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as thedoctor described the devastating problems Danae could face ifshe survived.
She would probably never walk, or talk, or see. She wouldbe prone to other catastrophic conditions from cerebral palsy tocomplete mental retardation, and on and on. Through the darkhours of morning as Danae held onto life by the thinnest thread,Diana slipped in and out of drugged sleep. But she wasdetermined that their daughter would live to be a happy, healthyyoung girl. David, fully awake, knew he must confront his wifewith the inevitable.
David told Diana that they needed to talk about funeralarrangements. But Diana said, "No, that is not going to happen.No way! I don't care what the doctors say, Danae is not goingto die. One day she will be just fine and she will be home withus."
As if willed to live by Diana's determination, Danae clungto life hour after hour. But as those first rainy days passed,a new agony set in for David and Diana. Because Danae'sunderdeveloped nervous system was essentially "raw," the leastkiss or caress only intensified her discomfort, so they couldn'teven cradle their tiny baby. All they could do, as Danaestruggled beneath the ultraviolet light, was to pray that Godwould stay close to their precious little girl.
At last, when Danae was two months old, her parents wereable to hold her for the first time. Two months later, she wenthome from the hospital just as her mother predicted, even thoughdoctors grimly warned that her chances of leading a normal lifewere almost zero.
Today, five years later, Danae is a petite but feisty younggirl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest forlife. 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 herbrother's baseball team was practicing. As always, Danae wasbusy chattering when she suddenly fell silent. Hugging her armsacross 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 toget wet, it smells like rain."
Caught in the moment, Danae shook her head, patted her thinshoulder and loudly announced, "No, it smells like him. Itsmells like God when you lay your head on His chest."
Tears blurred Diana's eyes as Danae happily hopped down toplay with the other children before the rain came. Herdaughter's words confirmed what Diana and the rest of theBlessing family had known all along. During those long days andnights of the first two months of her life, when her nerves weretoo 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 SoulCopyright 2000 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen
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