More on my prickly friend and hero

For months now I've said I'm going to start posting "My Hero Monday." Not terrifically original, maybe, but I run into so many everyday folks who are accomplishing amazing things that I just want to start keeping track.

Long ago in journalism school, a professor told me that everyone has a story worth reading if it's written right. Some of 'em just jump out at you.

My prickly friend, M, told me it would be okay to tell more about her. It's not Monday but here goes.

M is my hero because she has done the right thing even though it has turned her life upside down and inside out. She took the long way around, including teenage motherhood and divorce/remarriage, to stability and then got the call that would change her life yet again.

It was the police, telling them M's brother-in-law and his girlfriend had gotten into a domestic dispute and that the couple's five children needed a place to stay for a week or so. M and family agreed to take them in.

But what they thought would be a week turned into a lifetime. M and her husband have permanent custody of the five siblings in addition to her three.

You know what else makes her my hero? I've never heard her complain. In fact, she talks about her tricksy entry into the world of youth pastoring as a way for God to prepare her for unexpected massive motherhood. She never liked anyone's children but her own until she had to step into a youth leadership role in a former church, just before she got custody of the "new" kids.

As with most children in sub-ideal homes, M's new kids had lots of problems. And then there were the nightmares of paperwork, background checks, finances, insurance, housing and scheduling, in addition to staying under the bio father's radar to protect the children. M and her husband have had the children for four years or so now, and when I met them a year or so ago, it never occurred to me that they were anything but a big ol' traditional, nuclear family.

And building a seamless love from a bunch of broken and damaged parts? That's what makes M my hero.