I Will Praise You in the Storm: The Story of Stephen and Holly Deaubé, a Journey of Faith

Copyright © 2013 Danny L. Deaubé.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-1305-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-1304-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-1306-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013918629

WestBow Press rev. date: 2/12/2016

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1    God Is Good

Chapter 2    What’s Up, Doc?

Chapter 3    God Doesn’t Make Mistakes

Chapter 4    Sticks and Stones

Chapter 5    Fun and Games

Chapter 6    God Is in Control

Chapter 7    Stephen’s Transplant

Chapter 8    Holly’s Transplants

Chapter 9    The Celebration

Chapter 10    Moving Forward

Chapter 11    Calm before the Storm

Chapter 12    My Hope Is in You

Chapter 13    The Storm Continues

Chapter 14    Stephen’s Testimony

Chapter 15    Trouble in California

Chapter 16    Finishing Strong

Chapter 17    A Faithful Servant

Chapter 18    God Is Still Good

A Word from the Author

Acknowledgments

Afterword

In memory of Stephen and Holly Deaubé

They gave so much and they asked so little.

They lived, they laughed, and they loved.

GOD’S PEN

Our lives are like a storybook, no two books are the same.

We live our life but once; we have no one else to blame.

And though life is uncertain and our foundation quakes,

God’s hands are very steady. God does not make mistakes.

When the world begins to crumble, right beneath our feet,

and everything goes wrong and we’re on a dead-end street,

God has a plan for us, and though our heart just breaks,

He controls all that happens. God does not make mistakes.

But as we read each chapter, we can see beyond the veil.

God did not allow our trials just for us to fail.

He planned each trial and setback; He knows what it takes

to grow in faith with trouble. God does not make mistakes.

For every storm and tempest, whether now or in due season,

God planned every step, though it makes no rhyme or reason.

Because He holds the pen, and although our heart just aches,

God is the author of our faith. God does not make mistakes.

And when our life begins to fade and clouds turn to gray,

remember we are all but dust, formed by the potter’s clay.

Though life has not been easy, and yes we have heartaches;

God does nothing by accident. God does not make mistakes.

All of us are storybooks written by God’s hand,

yet we question what He writes when we do not understand.

In time, it will all make sense to us, when the world awakes.

God’s pen has no eraser. God does not make mistakes.

Prologue

S outhern California is beautiful this time of year; you cannot beat the weather. I should know—I lived almost my entire life there. My wife, Bonnie, and I were born there sixty-three years ago. It is a nice place to live and raise your kids, but California was changing, and I did not like the direction it was heading. With all the crime, violence, and crowded freeways, we were ready for a different kind of change. Both of us wanted some peace, quiet, and space. I was always somewhat of a loner and loved the great outdoors. For most of my life, I envisioned living in the open air under a canopy of large evergreens. The Pacific Northwest provided a safe haven for those seeking a refuge from the hustle and bustle of city life. The weather was not ideal like California, but a tradeoff we were willing to make.

I retired in 2007 after thirty years as a bricklayer, and in 2008 moved into our new home in the quaint little city of Monroe, Oregon with my wife and our fourteen-year-old son Dustin. Monroe is a small farming town with a population of a meager 617. We lived in Oregon for two years when Bonnie and I decided in the summer of 2010 to visit our oldest son, Donald, and his family. Dustin stayed with close friends back home. Donald lived in Lakewood, California, almost a thousand miles away, and it took us nearly two days to drive there.

The next morning, my wife and I drove about twenty-five miles to Rose Hills cemetery in Whittier, one of our main purposes for coming, and parked on the side of the road near my favorite spot. After taking a deep breath, we walked slowly hand in hand around a small lake, down the worn dirt path leading to two graves lying side by side. One had a small marker, weathered over years, while the other was bright and polished. A lump was in my throat and tears in my eyes each time I visited that triggered a rush of memories. After clearing some leaves and brushing away some debris, I read the two familiar names etched on the markers next to each other: Holly M. Deaubé and Stephen Michael Deaubé, our children. Stephen had died two years earlier, and Holly almost twenty-four years ago. We were here to visit their graves and see Stephen’s new marker. Bonnie and I had purchased four plots back in 1974, five years after we married, and at the time, we never planned to use the graves before our death. Children bury their parents, not the other way around. Life does not always work out as we planned. I didn’t learn this by reading books; I learned it the hard way. It is best to write my plans out in pencil, and let God have the pen.

I knelt down and ran my fingers over each letter of their name, first one, and then the other out of my deepest respect. My hopes and dreams lay buried with them as well as a part of me. I was still grieving. Grief is not something you get over, it is something you go through. There are no short cuts or detours around grief; it is my journey and no one can take it for me. I grieved deeply because I loved deeply. I closed my eyes and thanked God for the honor of being their father. Only time will tell when I am whole once again, that is, when we are reunited.

Their souls and spirits had long departed, but for me, it was the only place on earth I felt close with them. Lying just beneath our feet was only the earthly baggage they left behind, discarded like old worn clothes, in exchange for new heavenly garments. I was happy for them because their pain had ceased. However, mine had not, and I missed them immensely. We posed and took pictures beside their graves as a memento of our visit. Bonnie stood intensely silent with tears in her eyes. She understood them much better than I did. With joy and with pain, she gave them life. Now, with pain and with sorrow, she bid them good-bye. The two hardest words a person can say in life are hello for the first time and good-bye for the last. How great is a mother’s love! I stood for a moment and surveyed the hillside sprinkled with graves, each with their own story to tell. I realized I was not alone in my grief.

It was peaceful beside the clear lake with an occasional glimpse of Japanese koi adorned with autumn colors. The lake was less than a stone’s throw away, and the large conifer trees with their branches, provided cover and added to the quiet park setting. A group of mallard ducks had already staked their claim, swimming casually in a pond, sending a myriad of ripples across the water, their young ducklings following in hot pursuit.

To the west of us was Cherry Blossom Lawn, a Japanese garden complete with bridge, courtyard, and seating area. Compliant ducks were gorging themselves with bread thrown by uninformed visitors, in spite of the NO FEEDING signs, while the koi inhabitants dashed around to get the leftovers. Children of all ages frequented the area with reckless abandonment, leaving their parents and siblings to catch up. Excitement filled the air with sounds of laughter leaving me with a clash of emotions and all I could do was take it in.

Bonnie and I sat down alongside the two premature stones that symbolized our dashed hopes and dreams and thought about what might have been. I polished their markers with my hands and cleared away the grass that dared to evade their space. It was a gorgeous day, and the sun was out boasting as usual in Southern California, reflecting her joy from the lake. However, our story really begins forty-five years earlier, when I was young, in love, and just out of high school, with my whole life ahead of me. I remember it like it was yesterday.

CHAPTER 1

God Is Good

I was graduating from Long Beach Jordan High School with the class of 1966, and life was looking good in sunny Southern California. I had waited for years for this moment, but once it finally arrived, melancholy swept over me. Most of the friends I had made through my school years were taking different paths and pursuing different careers than mine, and I would most likely never see them again. I was on my own and expected to contribute to society. I felt like a drifter, with my diploma and education all neatly packed away, and ready to emerge into this brave new world. I had no clue where the road would take me or whether it was friendly or hostile. I never imagined the events to follow would change my life forever.

I married my high school sweetheart, Bonnie, in a little chapel in North Long Beach. We met in our senior year at school and fell in love. We never had much of a honeymoon to speak of, only a one-night stay in a motel across from Disneyland, in Anaheim, California. I was very much in love, like many newlywed couples, we were naive, inexperienced, and hopeful. Life seemed bright, with a new horizon of opportunities and decisions to make on our own. We lived on love, as my mother often said; unfortunately, love does not pay the bills, so we kept our jobs.

Bonnie worked as a telephone operator at American Wholesale Hardware Company in Long Beach, and I delivered newspapers for the Long Beach Press Telegram by car in the early morning and worked for A-1 Demolition Company in Paramount by day. Raising a family, buying a house, and growing old together was the American Dream for me, but it was not going to be easy. We saved our money and worked hard in hope of achieving those dreams. Bonnie and I visited our early childhood churches we attended years ago in an effort to establish a stable environment to raise a family. The people were friendly, but the ministers spoke in tones of superiority, and we left with a feeling of sadness. We decided to look around and try again in the near future.

September 13, 1969, Donald Lee Deaubé, our first child, was born. He was a healthy baby boy, and Bonnie and I enjoyed being parents for the first time. A week later, I was involved in a motorcycle accident with a car and broke my leg. After I recovered, I found a job as a designer and spray painter for Safetech, a motorcycle helmet company in Paramount. They moved to Gardenia and I worked there for the next nine years.

In 1970 we moved from our one-bedroom apartment to my father-in-law’s two-bedroom rental just two miles away. In 1971 I was about to be drafted so I joined the Navy, completed boot camp in San Diego, and prepared to go active duty. My mother and father had divorced in 1968, and my father moved into my home to be with my wife while I was away. Two weeks before I was to go, Congress put my deployment on hold because of an error in notification. The Vietnam War was ending, and I never received a callback. However,