tHE SMELL OF RAIn

A cold March wind danced
around the dead of night in
Dallas as the Doctor walked into
the small hospital room of Diana
Blessing. Still groggy from
surgery, her husband David held
her hand as they braced
themselves for the latest news.
That afternoon of March
10,1991, complications had
forced Diana, only 24 weeks
pregnant, to Danae Lu Blessing.
At 12 inches long and weighing
only one pound and nine
ounces, 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, and even then, 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
would likely face if she survived.
She would never walk, she
would never talk, she would
probably be blind, and she
would certainly be prone to
other catastrophic conditions
from cerebral palsy to complete
mental retardation, and on and
on. “No! No!” was all Diana
could say. She and David, with
their 5-year-old son Dustin, had
long dreamed of the day they
would have a daughter to
become a family of four. Now,
within a matter of hours, that
dream was slipping away.
Through the dark hours of
morning as Danae held onto life
by the thinnest thread, Diana
slipped in and out of sleep,
growing more and more
determined that their tiny
daughter would live, and live to
be a healthy, happy young girl.
But David, fully awake and
listening to additional dire
details of their daughter’s
chances of ever leaving the
hospital alive, much less
healthy, knew he must confront
his wife with the inevitable.
David walked in and said that
we needed to talk about making
funeral arrangements. Diana
remembers, ‘I felt so bad for
him because he was doing
everything, trying to include me
in what was going on, but I just
wouldn’t listen, I couldn’t
listen. I 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 coming home
with us!”
As if willed to live by Diana’s
determination, Danae clung to
life hour after hour, with the
help of every medical machine
and marvel her miniature body
could endure. But as those first
days passed, a new agony set in
for David and Diana. Because
Danae’s under-developed
nervous system was essentially
raw, the lightest kiss or caress
only intensified her discomfort,
so they couldn’t even cradle
their tiny baby girl against their
chests to offer the strength of
their love. All they could do, as
Danae struggled alone beneath
the ultraviolet light in the tangle
of tubes and wires, was to pray
that God would stay close to
their precious little girl. There
was never a moment when
Danae suddenly grew stronger.
But as the weeks went by, she
did slowly gain an ounce of
weight here and an ounce of
strength there. At last, when
Danae turned two months old,
her parents were able to hold
her in their arms for the very
first time. And two months
later-though doctors continued
to gently but grimly warn that
her chances of surviving, much
less living any kind of normal
life, were next to zero. Danae
went home from the hospital,
just as her mother had
predicted.
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 signs, what so ever, of
any mental or physical
impairment. Simply, she is
everything a little girl can be
and more-but that happy
ending is far from the end of
her story.
One blistering afternoon in the
summer of 1996 near her home
in Irving, Texas, Danae was
sitting in her mother’s lap in
the bleachers of a local ballpark
where her brother Dustin’s
baseball team was practicing. As
always, Danae was chattering
non-stop with her mother and
several other adults sitting
nearby when she suddenly fell
silent. Hugging her arms across
her chest, Danae asked, “Do
you smell that?” Smelling the
air and detecting the approach
of a thunderstorm, Diana
replied, “Yes, it smells like
rain.” Danae closed her eyes
and again asked, “Do you smell
that?” Once again, her mother
replied, “Yes, I think we’re
about to get wet, it smells like
rain. Still caught in the moment,
Danae shook her head, patted
her thin shoulders with her
small hands 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 then happily hopped
down to play with the other
children.
Before the rains came, her
daughter’s words confirmed
what Diana and all the members
of the extended Blessing family
had known, at least in their
hearts, all along. During those
long days and nights of her first
two months of her life, when
her nerves were too sensitive
for them to touch her, God was
holding Danae on His chest and
it is His loving scent that she
remembers so well.