I'm lucky

I've heard unpleasant stories from friends of mine about their mothers-in-law, and each time I do, I'm grateful again for my mother-in-law. Since the first time she met me, she's been nothing but kind, accepting and loving to me. I feel as much a part of her family as I do my own.

Let me tell you a quick story that illustrates how Ardis is. I took a long time to finish college. I'd started back in 1989 and then dropped out the fall of my senior year. My first marriage was collapsing, my older son had just been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and frankly school was my last priority. I started back in 1999, taking a class or two each semester and finally finished in May 2003.

Ardis and Kent's aunt JB drove the four hours from Tulsa to be at my graduation, and then turned around and drove home. That's a lot of driving in one day just to get broiled in the sun at Memorial Stadium on the KU campus. And it was HOT, we all got sunburns and sweated buckets.

I was just blown away she would do that for someone who wasn't yet married to her son. That's just one reason I consider her my role model in how to be the kind of mother-in-law you want to have around, not the kind you make jokes about.