它闻起来像雨

美国达拉斯一个阴森之夜，三月的寒风正无所忌惮地肆虐着。当医生走进这家小医院的病房，戴安娜.布莱森仍然处于刚刚剖腹产手术后的昏沉之中。

她的丈夫大卫紧握着她的手，他们强打精神等待医生的最新消息。1991年3月10日这一天下午，由于突发的并发症使得怀孕24周的戴安娜不得不施行紧急剖腹产手术，以便使他们的女儿---达娜.露.布莱森提前出生。

得知女儿只有12英寸长、一磅九盎司重时，他们清楚这样的早产使他们的女儿处于怎样的危险境地。

虽然医生尽可能地友善柔和，但他的话语仍然像重磅炸弹一样丢在他们面前：“我不认为她能够活下来。”

“她活过今夜的可能性只有百分之十，即便有微小的几率她能侥幸活下来，她的未来也必将是非常残酷的。”

大卫和戴安娜听着医生描述达娜纵使存活也必将面对的毁灭性的问题，因着不敢相信，他们的表情完全麻木了。

达娜将永远不会走路，不能说话，有可能眼瞎，以及其它可能的灾难性的情形，包括脑瘫甚至完全的智力障碍等等。

“不！不！”这是戴安娜唯一说出的一个字。

戴安娜和她的丈夫大卫，以及他们五岁的儿子达斯汀，一直梦想着有一天他们会有一个女儿，成为一个四口之家。现在，几个小时的功夫，他们的梦想就这样要溜走了。

当最初的几天好不容易捱过去之后，又一个新的痛苦折磨着大卫和戴安娜。由于达娜欠发育的神经系统基本上处于原始状态，最轻柔的亲吻和爱抚都会造成达娜强烈的不安，因此他们甚至不能将达娜抱在胸前轻轻摇动，以表达他们的父母之爱。

他们唯一能做的，就是当达娜在强紫外线照射以及一堆混乱的管子和电线下独自挣扎时，祈求上帝能够亲近他们可怜的宝贝女儿。

期盼达娜有一天突然强壮起来的时刻似乎总也没有到来。

然而随着时间的推移，达娜的确缓慢地这里增加一盎司的体重，那里增强一点点的体力。

当达娜两个月的时候，她的的父母终于可以第一次将她抱在怀里。

又过两个月之后，虽然医生还在继续温和又冷峻地警告达娜存活的几率，以及她将来过正常人生活的可能性趋近于零，但达娜终于可以从医院里回家，正如她妈妈所预期的那样。

五年之后，达娜长成一个虽然娇小却活泼异常的女孩，她的一双灰色眼睛闪闪发光，透射出对生活不灭的挚爱。

她完全没有显出任何神智或身体上的损害，她和其他正常女孩完全没有两样甚至更棒。然而，她那美妙又神奇的故事并没有到此结束。

1996年夏天一个炎热的下午，在达娜的家乡德州鄂尔温市，达娜在一个球场的看台坐在她妈妈的膝盖上，兴奋地观看她哥哥达斯汀的棒球训练。

像往常一样，达娜叽叽喳喳不停地和她妈妈以及附近坐着的几个大人闲聊，突然她陷入了沉默。她将两手抱在胸前，问：“妈咪，你闻到了吗？”

戴安娜闻闻空气的味道，觉察到暴风雨将要来临，回答说，“是的，它闻起来像雨。”

达娜闭上了眼睛，再次询问，“妈咪，你闻到了吗？”

再一次，她妈妈回答说，“是的，我想我们要被淋湿了，它闻起来像雨。”

达娜仍然沉浸在宁静之中，她摇摇头，用她两只小手轻轻拍拍她自己瘦小的肩膀，突然大声说，“不！它闻起来像他的香味！”

“你把你的头靠在他的胸口，闻起来像神的香味。”

达娜说着就愉快地跳下去和其他小朋友们玩耍，而泪水却早已模糊了戴安娜的双眼。在暴雨到来之前，女儿的话，印证了一直以来戴安娜和所有布莱森家族成员心中的秘密---至少在他们的心里他们都知道。

在达娜生命头两个月的漫长日子里，当她全身的神经过于敏感以至他们不能抚摸她的时候，天父上帝将达娜抱在自己的怀里，是他的香味使达娜始终记忆犹新！

附英文原文：

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. 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 Caesarean to deliver the 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 grey 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 non-stop 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 ?'

Once again, her mother replied, '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 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.