By Jeff Brumley
Waco, Texas, resident Emily Guberman is a new Baylor University graduate, a recently minted Baptist and an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer. She’s also running 1,000 miles over a year for Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
But the path that led Guberman, 22, to such an ambitious and service-oriented life began in a pretty dark and lonely place.
It came on the morning of May 29, 2009, during Guberman’s sophomore year in high school in The Woodlands, Texas. She knew something was off when her father, instead of her mother, got her out of bed.
Then came the explanation: Cheryl Guberman had been killed by a drunk driver the night before.
The news transformed her from a happy kid into one who walled her true self off from others.
“I didn’t know how to deal with my pain,” said Guberman, now 22. “I felt like I had to be this really strong person and I didn’t want to cry about it, so I just pushed through it and held all my grief and acted normal, like my life was great.”
But it wasn’t. “On the inside I was a broken person.”
‘It hurt me enough’
The journey from then to now has been one marked by a series of before-and-after moments that have transformed Guberman emotionally, physically and spiritually.
In fact, she’s especially grateful to her new spiritual home at Highland Baptist Church in Waco. But even the faith that led her here was hard won in the beginning.
It was during those months immediately following Cheryl Guberman’s death that Emily’s life was darkest. She resisted learning much about the circumstances of the traffic crash that claimed her mother’s life.
“I chose not to read a lot of the news articles about it,” she said. About all she knew was that the woman driving the other vehicle had tested twice over the legal limit for alcohol.
She also knew that her father and one of her brothers had come upon the accident and were the first to call 911.
“We had reporters at our house the morning that I found out,” she said. “But I stayed away from reading things — it hurt me enough that she was gone.”
She pursued no religious life at the time. “There was really nothing but this big, empty part of me” where her mother had been, Guberman said.
‘Joy and life’
Then came Christmas of 2009, and her feelings seemed to get worse.
“I really missed my mom,” she said.
She went to a Christmas party where a friend asked if she could pray for Guberman. She thought it was a strange request but consented anyway.
“She was asking for Jesus to take my burdens from me and at that moment I wanted what she had — I wanted to be able to ask for those things,” Guberman said. “I felt like someone else was walking beside me and I wasn’t alone.”
Much of what Guberman has since become, she said, can be traced to those moments of crisis and faith in her life.
She started attending church. Her experiences inspired her to apply to Baylor, where the influence of faith was appealing, Guberman said.
Last summer she interned in a church-based special-needs ministry. It was, she said, in response to a calling she feels to work as an occupational therapist.
There’s also a calling to go abroad as a missionary to work with people who lack adequate care, Guberman said.
The summer internship “gave me so much joy and life,” she said.
Growth through struggle
Guberman said she’s progressed far from the grieving over her mother to now being inspired by her. That’s what’s motivated her to find ways to give back — as was her mother’s practice.
“What I choose to do now is to serve other people because of who my mom was,” Guberman said.
And her growing faith has fed that motivation.
Guberman said she found Highland Baptist while at Baylor, a discovery that provided the fellowship, purpose and experience of Christ that took her to the next next level of her faith. She was baptized this year.
“I’ve learned about God’s plan for all of us … and that as it hurts that my mom is gone, I am seeing my purpose and how I need to live my life,” she said.
That certainly explains her decision to volunteer with Americorps VISTA after her May graduation from Baylor. She’s doing that work at the university’s Student Learning and Engagement Office.
That’s also behind her decision to raise funds for Mothers Against Drunk Driving by running 1,000 miles over 12 months. She launched her “MADD Miles for Mom” campaign Sept. 1 and has already raised close to $2,000.
But it’s a challenge. Guberman said she has asthma and that it’s not easy working up the motivation to run the minimum 2.7 miles a day needed to reach her goal.
“The struggle I go through reminds me of the struggles I went through with my mom,” she said. “It reminds me of the struggles alcoholics go through … and the struggles the families go through when they lose someone.”
Guberman said her faith has gotten her through all of these challenges.
“Jesus Christ reminds me I don’t have to deal with the pain alone,” she said.