Commencement will bring special joy to daughter and mother team

As Tonya Burns likes to say, she raised her two children to take on the world. Though always loving her, they didn’t always like her methods as she pushed them through difficult times to find out who they should and could become.

That’s especially true for daughter Jordan who was born with arthrogryposis, a variety of conditions involving multiple joint stiffness. She’s undergone many surgeries and countless hours of therapy to function, now using a mobility scooter. 

But she has limited use of her hands, so her mother has attended every one of her Purdue University Fort Wayne classes, taking notes and filling up stacks of notebooks as Jordan majors in human services. Because of the challenges, they needed eight years, but Jordan will graduate in May.

“She knew that I was the person in her life who has her back and will help her and fight for whatever she needs to do,” Tonya said. “She knew we were a team.”
As Jordan said, she needs her mom’s help, so they’ve always been hip-to-hip.

“I know she has made sacrifices for me, but she has done it so effortlessly and throughout my entire life that I don't see what others see,” Jordan said. “I know she has fought battles for me, and continues to do so.  I know that she never asks for anything in return. I know she does everything within her power to help me be a typical 25-year-old and does not complain and hardly ever tells me, ‘No.’”

Tonya has devoted countless hours to her daughter’s education, often explaining it’s not about her own wants. And when a professor suggested Tonya also work for a degree, she declined, saying then she couldn’t share the answers with Jordan. This effort was all about Jordan, who has offered to put a sticky note on her diploma. Tonya refused.

“My mom has put her heart and soul into me and my successes, and she deserves more than thankful, she deserves gratitude,” Jordan said. “She is one of my best friends and always, always has been my biggest supporter. I am not who I am without her!”

After Jordan was born, and knowing the tasks ahead, Tonya gave up her career as a bank manager to take care of her daughter and attend the frequent doctor appointments. When Jordan started school in Hamilton, her mother began working for the school corporation as an aide and later running the library. 

When Jordan started attending PFW, Tonya gave up her job in Hamilton, too. For the next eight years, she took notes while Jordan focused on the professors. Tonya took such good notes, and knowing the duo never missed a class, Jordan’s friends sometimes asked to borrow her work.

“They just have a light about them,” said Jenna Hoppe, senior director of the First Year Advising Center. “They came into this knowing this was a long-haul plan, but I never had any doubt Jordan was going to finish and be where she is. When they cross the stage at commencement, I will just be a ball of tears because that’s a pretty incredible story. I can’t wait to see what she does in her life.”

There were plenty of challenges, but they powered through, though Tonya struggled to keep pace in trigonometry and calculus. 

“I told her, `You are on your own,’” Tonya recalled with a laugh. “We spent a lot of time in the Tutoring Center.” 

They started with two classes per semester, pushed it to three, and then took summer classes to speed her progress toward graduation. Because Jordan also has some processing challenges, they’d drive 45 minutes home to Pleasant Lake, and Tonya would reteach the materials. Jordan maintains a spectacular grade point average and serves as president of the PFW chapter of Tau Upsilon Alpha, the human services national honor society.

Jordan said she loves PFW, once telling Tonya the people here see her as simply Jordan and not Jordan with a disability. 

“It’s really nice that she got to be herself here, and each year that she has been here she has grown,” Tonya said. “She has made me proud to see her gaining the respect of so many professors and making so many friends. She never had that before.”

Unsure of her future, Jordan pictures herself working in a hospital. There will be a new structure and routine to learn for both of them, and more necessary adjustments and growth.

But Jordan has reached a point her mother only dreamed, hoped, and prayed for, when as a newborn Tonya told her she was beautiful and they would take on the world together.