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A cold March wind danced
around the dead of night in
Dallas as the doctor walked
into the small hospital room
of Diana Blessing. She 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 Cesarean to
deliver couple's new
daughter, Dana Lu Blessing.
At 12 inches long and
weighing only one pound
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 Dana
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
But as those first days
passed, a new agony set in
for David and Diana.
Because Dana'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 Dana
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 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.
Five years later, when Dana
was a petite but feisty young
girl with glittering gray eyes
and an unquenchable zest for
life.
She showed no signs
whatsoever of any mental or
physical impairment. Simply,
she was 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, Dana
was sitting in her mother's lap
in the bleachers of a local ball
park where her brother
Dustin's baseball team was
practicing.
As always, Dana was
chattering nonstop with her
mother and several other
adults sitting nearby when
she suddenly fell silent.
Hugging her arms across her
chest, little Dana asked, "Do
you smell that?"
Smelling the air and detecting
the approach of a
thunderstorm, Diana replied,
"Yes, it smells like rain."
Dana closed her eyes and
again asked, "Do you smell
that?"
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.
Tears blurred Diana's eyes
as Dana 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
Dana on His chest and it is
His loving scent that she
remembers so well.