The Smell Of Rain

A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in Dallas as the doctor walked into Diana Blessing's small hospital room. As Diana was 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 Caesarean to deliver their daughter, Dana Lu Blessing, who was about 30cm long and weighed only 0.7kg. They knew she was perilously premature.

Still, the doctor's soft words dropped like a bomb: "I don't think she's going to make it. There's only a 10% chance she will live through the night, and even if 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 Dana would likely face if she survived. She would never walk or talk; she would probably be blind; she would certainly be prone to other catastrophic conditions, from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation.

"No! No!" was all Diana could say. She and David, with their five-year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of Dana's arrival, and being a family of four. Now, within a matter of hours, that dream was slipping away.

Through the dark hours of morning, as Dana held onto life by the thinnest thread, Diana slipped in and out of sleep, growing more and more determined that her tiny newborn would live, and live to be a healthy, happy girl.

But David, fully awake and aware of the dire details of their daughter's chances of ever leaving the hospital alive, must less healthy, knew he must confront his wife with the inevitable. He walked in and said that they needed to talk about making funeral arrangements.

Diana remembers she 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." she said, "No, that is not going to happen. I don't care what the doctors say. Dana is not going to die! One day she will be just fine, and she will be going home with us!"

As if willed to live by Diana's determination, Dana 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 her parents.

Because Dana's underdeveloped nervous system was essentially "raw", the lightest kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort, so they couldn't even cradle her against their chest to offer the strength of their love. All they could do, as Dana struggled alone beneath the ultraviolet light amidst 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 Dana 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 Dana 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, Dana went home from the hospital, just as her mother had predicted.

Today, Dana is a petite but feisty young girl with glittering grey eyes and an unquenchable zest for life. She shows no signs whatsoever of any mental or physical impairment. Simple, she is everything a girl can be and more. But ... this is far from the end of her happy story.

One blistering afternoon in the summer or 1996 near her home in Irving, Texas, Dana was sitting on her mother's lap on the bleachers of a local ballpark where Dustin's baseball team was practising.

As always, Dana was chattering non-stop with her mother and several other adults nearby when she suddenly fell silent. Hugging her arms across her chest, she asked, "Do you smell that?"

Diana sniffed the air and could detect the approach of a thunderstorm. "Yes, it smells like rain," she replied.

Dana closed her eyes and again asked: "Do you smell that?"

Once again, her mother said, "Yes, I think we're about to get wet. It smells like rain."

Still caught in the moment, Dana 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 Dana hopped down to play with the other children. Before the rains came, her daughter's words confirmed what she 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 the first two months of her life, when her nerves were too sensitive for them to touch her, God was holding Dana on his chest. And it was his loving scent that she remembered so well.

Sent to Starmag by Emily Loh and Kelly Tan