Daniel's Story Chapter 11.

11. A New Life!


When Daniel died, Yuki was 5 months pregnant. I was afraid that the many tears and sleepless nights might have a negative effect on the baby. Another concern was the gender of the new baby. Congenital heart diseases occur more often in boys than in girls, so we were ancious about the possibility of having a second ill child. Thus fairly early in the pregnancy we asked the doctor if he could tell us.
It was a boy!
We received this news with ambiguous feelings. Another boy after Daniel had died, was very comforting, but then we also knew that the risk for a heart defect would be greater. It was thus great news when the doctor told us that all four chambers of the heart were clearly visible and no malfunction could be detected. Then, on January 24, 2001, after a sleepness night for Yuki, our son was born at 9 o'clock in the morning.
Then Yuki came up with a very beautiful name: Mishael
The unusual spelling is biblical and also should reflect that he is special to us. "Michael" would be too normal.
Of course Yuki also gave him a Japanese name, since all our other children have two first names. Tomo
Which means "friend". Indeed the Mishael in the Bible was a friend of the biblical Daniel. And so should our Mishael be to our Daniel. And even our Mishael will never meet his older brother on this earth, the time will come when we can explain to him the deeper meaning of his name.
Since Misha's birth was so quick, he was a very beautiful baby, with a loud voice, too. He was 3600 g and 56 cm when he was born, a really big boy, for Japanese standards.
For the next few hours after the birth, he was in the room next to the nursery under supervision. I saw him through the window and his large chest moved in regular intervals. "In there beats a strong and powerful heart", I thought.
After a week Yuki returned home, and we had our new family member at home! Misha was indeed a big boy and he drank well.
He was very quite, too. It did not take too long and he slept through a whole night without waking up. During the day he was a quiet, good natured boy. He never complained, never cried. It did not take too long until his dark brown eyes started to focus and to recognize people. And then his character became more clear. He smiled. And he smiled. And he smiled. Whenever - he smiled. He could wake up in the morning - hungry and with wet diapers. No worse time for a baby. But instead of crying, he chose to smile whenever he saw me.
After a few months, we could see that his character developed more and more. He is a real blessing for our familiy. Our other children love him and they are very jealous about him. They count the minutes how long each of them is carrying him. They count the spoons each of them is allowed to feed him.
The more Misha grows the more we see how much he resembles Daniel. Not only Daniel but also his two sisters. By comparing baby photos of them we see that he is a perfect match to our three other children.

The older he gets, the more amazing is his development. Sometimes he has this look in his eyes, that was so typical for Daniel, sometimes he holds his head like Daniel did.
About 10 months after his birth is suddenly came to my mind that if Daniel wouldn't have died, Misha would not have been born. It became so clear to me. The Lord gave us Misha, because he took Daniel to him.
So many times we humans think "Why did God do this to me?" "Why do I have to suffer?"
But God is a God who does not forsake us nor leave us. He is the source of life. It is such a precious gift to see the growing up of a healthy little boy. It was my greatest wish to see Daniel healed. This wish was not fulfilled. But now we got to see the life of another healthy boy. In Misha we can see something we couldn't see in Daniel. The development of a boy, without the fear of infections, without anxiety, without the frightening next operation.

This in itself is such a big gift - and a sign that we have a loving and caring God.