An Apple for the Teacher, My Mom, Brenda Dauber

My fondest memory of my mom is a recurring one. I am trudging past the living room at 6:30 in the morning, headed for a bowl of cereal before school. Mama is sitting in the gold rocker-recliner, reading her Bible. She looks up, smiles and greets me with a soft "Good morning, honey." I can't express the deepest comfort I had knowing that my mom was up every morning before us, praying and communing with God. While Mama loves books, the Bible is her favorite. Her example of rising early in the morning and spending time with God before busying herself with chores has stayed with me all these years. It became easy for me when I was a mom to want to do the same. Although I failed repeatedly in this cherished discipline as a mother of three little children in four years' time, I soon came to understand that it was life to me. Not a crutch, but life. There's no way I'd rather spend the first hour of my day, doing what Mama did (and still does).

"Do well, and even if you don't, I'll still love you." My mom spoke those words to me and hugged me as I left for school one day in seventh grade. It was the day of the interscholastic spelling bee at Harford Christian School, a day I expected to come home with a blue ribbon.

I was doing fine until the caller, a petite English teacher with a soft voice and nervous laugh, said, "The next word is onx." I had never heard "onx". Was it a nasal plural for "ox"? Was it a verb or a noun? She couldn't find a helpful way to use it in a sentence. I spelled it phonetically, "o-n-x" and was told, "Incorrect. The correct spelling is o-n-y-x. " But that has two syllables and is pronounced "on-ix!" I insisted. It was useless. I was eliminated in the one area where I thought I had talent.

But the words my mom spoke that morning as I skipped happily out to the bus have carried me through great difficulties. They were so encouraging, so affirming. It was one of many phrases I recall her speaking to me at just the right time. As Proverbs says, "words fitly spoken are like apples of gold in a setting of silver."

Besides being verbally encouraging, my mom excels in reaching out to the poor. I've shared before that my mom (and dad) grew up poor and have not forgotten the feeling of poverty. When I was in junior high I remember how every Sunday they would go literally out of their way to pick up a poor family on the way to our well-coiffed and decently-heeled Baptist church in Bel Air. I was often too embarrassed to be seen with this family, and wondered if their unbathed smell would rub off on me. But my parents picked them up in rain, shine, extreme heat, and falling snow to get them to church.

Not only to the poor did my mom extend herself, but to other social pariahs as well. We had two girls in the church who were from a family that obviously couldn't afford many clothes, dental care, or deodorant. So these girls had a hard time finding friends--or employment. My mom made sure they got to church on Sunday, GA's (Girls in Action missionary club) on Wednesday, and took them shopping for new clothes when she could, even though we didn't have much money to spare since my sisters and I were privileged to go to Christian school. My mom also gave them jobs in our home and garden, for which they were grateful. For a change it gave them something productive to do with their hands and some extra spending money. Since they were not well trained in housekeeping, it was an exercise in patience for my mom to teach them how to dust, vacuum, and shine glass.

My mom has also modeled the belief that you're never too old to pursue your God-given dreams. Having the gift of mercy and a love for studying, she dreamed of becoming a nurse. She enrolled in the nursing program at KU right after high school, but when she met my dad at age 19 (and married him seven months later), she set aside her dream, moved to Baltimore on their honeymoon, and supported my dad's engineering opportunity at Edgewood Arsenal. Three years later she had my older sister, Rachel, then me 14 months after that, and my sister Andrea two years after me. She excelled as a nurse without pay as the best Band-aid putter-onner and kisser of boo-boos the world has ever known. When I was 14, my mom gave birth to Jill, the result of many years of praying for another baby following a heartbreaking and life-threatening miscarriage.

My mom's compassion to help the suffering didn't end with humans. She would do whatever it took to save a bird with a broken wing, a starving stray kitten, and of course, the family pets. My first memory of this nursing care to animals dates back to 1973. We were living in Kansas and I was in the third grade. I came home from school and found my Sheltie, Lassie, had just birthed three puppies, one for each of us girls. I named my puppy Tot. I loved that little furball; I played with her day and night. During the day when we were at school, the puppies played in their romping pen outside.

One day I came home and Rachel's puppy, DeeDee, wasn't in the pen. The other pups, six weeks old, were whimpering, as if something weren't right. Panicked, I ran into the house to find my mom hovering over a blue shoebox. Inside the box was my sister's dead puppy on a little towel. The towel was bloody, supporting DeeDee's lifeless head. "I'm so sorry..." my mom choked as she explained that DeeDee had been hit by a car while chasing a squirrel. I demanded details, and my mom painfully explained that my best friend's mom had accidently run over her. It happened so fast. My mom helped me not be angry about this accident, and assured me that DeeDee died quickly, did not suffer, doing what she loved best.

Four weeks later another puppy tragedy struck my young heart. This time it was my beloved Tot. I was over at Barb's house. Apparently my mom had looked out an upstairs window into the pen below just as Tot had turned over, paws in the air. Tot yelped for ten seconds, and then died. Mama had raced down the stairs and scooped up my puppy and gave her mouth-to-mouth and CPR, but it was too late.

There were many other moments of grieving over animals where my mom cradled our hearts and held us and let us have proper burials for them on the farm. She could as easily be a hospice nurse for pet owners as for people losing human loved ones.

As I mentioned, my mom had a miscarriage, and it was the same day the puppies had been born. The complications put her in the hospital where she needed a D&C following her loss.
I was oblivious to the seriousness of her condition. A doctor had accidentally severed a major vein and my mom bled out. She was pronounced clinically dead on the operating table, but was miraculously resuscitated. During that surgery, she says she got a glimpse of heaven. It was bright and beautiful and she didn't want to leave. She heard the Lord tell her gently that Lyle and the children needed her longer. She speaks of heaven as an Olympic athlete speaks of winning the Gold, but motherhood is the silver medal. I cannot express how thankful I am to God for reviving my mom physically that day.

When she was 53 years old, my mom finally got her RN degree. She was absolutely radiant as she accepted her cap and gown. Soon thereafter she was employed at a nursing home in Havre de Grace, working 3-11 pm, which , in nursing time means 2:45-midnight. She'd come home by 12:30, Daddy would rub her aching feet, and she'd do the same thing the next day. She loved her patients and loved giving them special care. But the facility pushed and pushed for faster care, less time spent with each patient. One day my mom went into an elderly woman's room, took her vitals, changed her IV, and gave her meds. When she walked out, she realized she had not even once looked the woman in the face. It was a moment that changed her. "This is not care. The day I'm too busy to look into the eyes of the one I'm caring for is the day I have no business being a nurse." She knew what she loved was comforting the hurting, connecting with them spiritually, and reassuring them that, if they knew the Savior, death is nothing to be afraid of.

My mom has also been a student for as long as I can remember. While other moms like to visit boutiques, my moms checks out bookstores. When choosing a vacation spot, she makes sure there's a college nearby. She likes colleges the way I like fabric stores. But whereas I shop by the yard, she shops by the semester. When she was recovering from her D&C, the local paper came out to photograph her in the small town Happenings section. There she lay in the hospital, pale but beaming, holding two mortarboards, one for a BS in political science, the other in Religious Ed. She had graduated with a double major at Sterling College,but I don't remember her being away at classes. Strange. She was "always there" for me when I was a kid. So how on earth she squeezed in a double major while being a pastor's wife and mother of three girls with one on the way, remains a mystery to me. When I went off to college, she did, too. She got a master's in Jewish studies, absorbing all the Hebrew she could learn and the culture of her heritage, learning from rabbis who didn't know the Messiah. How her heart yearns for all Jews to meet Yeshua (Jesus). She has set the example of evangelizing by learning their culture, not forcing them to accept hers.

Mama's experience with miscarriage and death provided her with the comfort wherewith she comforted me in a similar loss. When my pregnancy of 16 weeks ended in December of 1996, I wanted two people with me for the dreaded D&C: Paul and Mama. My greatest fear was not death (which was on my mind because of her freak accident 22 years earlier), but the fear of making the decision to go through an operation with the slightest chance that maybe-just maybe the baby was still alive. My second fear was that a D&C would scar my womb, thus preventing my chance at carrying again to term. Mama held my hand (and made sure the nurses did their job right for her baby on the bed). She somehow settled for me the grueling question, "Is my baby really dead or am I killing her?" And then she said, "It's very common for women to have D&C's to help them conceive." That was all the reassurance I needed before they put the "laughing gas" on my face.

I also remember my mom for her teaching gift. When she and my dad were in seminary in Missouri, they held a small group Bible study in our home. One man in the group was named Tudy: he was about 27 years old, and was functionally illiterate. His daughter, then five, had caught him "mixing up the words" when he read to her. She was learning to read in school. Her daddy had never learned. He asked my mom if she'd teach him. She responded eagerly and patiently. I remember Tudy sitting at our dining room table, sounding out the words in Dr. Seuss's Hop on Pop. The day he could read the whole book was like a day a prisoner is released from jail after serving a life sentence. Free at last. The world was now open to him. I have no doubt that my mom will get a special crown in heaven for teaching this man to read, because after Hop on Pop, he began devouring the Bible. When it came time for me to teach my own children to read, guess what book I started with?

It wasn't until she was 53 that Mama finally got her RN degree. During her four years of study I made a quilt (yes, I'm slow) and appliqued four hearts and one tiny one on the quilt. The four represented her four living children to whom she was devoted and for whom she had postponed her dream. The tiny heart was for baby John Herald, whom she had miscarried some 20 years earlier. On her graduation I presented the quilt to her and thanked her for always putting her family first, and told her how proud I was of her for sticking with her second calling as a nurse.

When Joel was born, I ruptured all the ligaments in my pelvis in a freak delivery. Bedridden, incontinent, depressed, unable to walk unaided, bathe myself, or be a real woman to my husband, I sank lower and lower emotionally. I counted on my mom's presence as both mother and nurse. She could make my bed like no one else, convince me of the necessity to wear Teds to prevent blood clots in my legs, and keep the laundry folded in perfect right angles. She brought me a Bible that was easy to hold in bed, and books to make me laugh. She took me for x-rays and doctors' consults and could interpret all the medical jargon when I was unable to cope. She relieved the kids of many household burdens and assured me that nursing my baby--the only thing I could do for him in my condition--was the one thing no one else could do for him. Another apple of gold.

I have been anything but succinct in honoring my mom here in this tribute, but how does one condense forty years of memories into one short tribute? I give up.

Mama, thank you for following the Lord, for loving Daddy and being his lifelong valentine, for getting up early to spend time with God in prayer and in His Word, for all the apples of gold in a setting of onx, for kissing my boo-boos and caring for animals. Thank you for teaching Tudy--and me!--to read, and for teaching English as a second language to our Chinese friends. Thank you for extending your hands to the poor, whether in Bel Air, Forest Hill, New Orleans, or Jerusalem. Thank you for praying me through so many hard times. And this is just the beginning. I haven't even mentioned how great a grandmother you are to my children....


I love you and pray God's love is very evident to you today . Happy Mother's Day, Mama!