A cold March wind danced around the dead of night
in Dallas as the doctor walked into Diana's small hospital room.
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.

At 12 inches long and weighing only 1 pound and 9 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,
her future could be a 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, never 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 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 drugged sleep,
growing more and more determined that their tiny daughter
would live and live to be a healthy, happy little girl.
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, "we need 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.
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 underdeveloped nervous system was essentially "raw",
every 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 weeks went by, she did slowly gain an ounce of weight
here and an ounce of strength there.

At last, when Danae was two months old,
her parents were able to hold her in their arms for the first time.
And two months later though doctors continued to gently
but firmly warn that her chances of surviving,
were slim.
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 impairments.
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
Texas, Danae 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, 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 family had known, at least in their hearts, all along.
During those long days and nights of her first two months of 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.

Thank you,
~Linda~