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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 usband 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, I don't want to listen to 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 underdeveloped 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.

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, whatsoever, 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 nonstop 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.

"Faith isn't the ability to believe long and far into the misty future.
It's simply taking God at his word and taking the next step."

OK...like I hadn't cried enough today!

THANKS for the beautiful story!

More Prayers for Logan... the remaining triplets (we have to get something better to call them) and Ryan...

Also see below another FReeper child to add to the list...(all of this praying is getting addicting) from FReeper Gitmo

(From the Richard Haynes thread)
She says,

"I'm hesitant to talk about Jesse on this thread. My problems are minor compared to what Lady Pilgrim's family is facing. But a number of people have FReepmailed me asking. Here is the FReepmail I sent them.

My 8 year old just had the third of what were supposed to be two surgeries on his left foot. One more to go, then we start working on the right foot.

They're excrutiating procedures. He screamed for 5 hours straight even though they had him on a maximum adult dose of morphine and some other pain killer.

Around Easter his feet started changing shape and have curled up like fists. He walks on the sides of them. He can't really wear shoes. They don't know what is causing it. There are 2 nervous disorders that can cause this, but he came up negative on both of them. The surgeries are basically rebuilding his feet.

On top of that, in recovery yesterday a sweet nurse handed him a peanut butter cracker. He goes into cardiac arrest if he eats peanut butter. (I had made sure they knew this ahead of time.) I screamed NO as she handed it to him. It was supposed to be a cheese cracker. I shook up the whole recovery ward when I bellowed at her, but it stopped him from eating it. She hadn't seen his charts yet and meant no harm.

Sorry to dump on you. I appreciate your prayers."

We can always add ANOTHER child, right?