Subject: It Smells Like Rain... {Insp}
From: Unicorn (unicorn@indenial.com)
Date: Sun Jul 30 2000 - 02:55:42 EDT
"It Smells Like 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 undergo an
emergency cesarean to deliver the couple's new daughter,
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 G-d 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 here.
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.
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 G-d 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, G-d was holding
Danae on His chest and it is His loving scent that
she remembers so well.
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