Michael J. Fox has notably embraced the power of positive during his three decades of Parkinson’s disease treatment. It’s a habit he acquired from his mother, Phyllis, who passed in September at age 92.

“My mum had a long and fulfilling life. “There was no more revered woman,” Fox, 61, said. “She was a lovely lady. You were confident that you would be treated fairly. And she loved to laugh—she laughed all the time.”

Phyllis felt anxious when he informed her of his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis at the age of 29 in 1991.

“I was still working TV and movies and establishing a family when I launched the foundation,” adds Fox, who married actress Tracy Pollan in 1988. Their son Sam, now 33, was born in 1989, and the couple added twin daughters Aquinnah and Schuyler — now 27 — in 1995, followed by their youngest, Esmé, 21.

“When she questioned how I did it all, I told her, ‘I just go forward.’” I’m not interested in taking stock or lamenting that something isn’t going to happen. My mum was the same way. She’d never calculate the losses. She’d consider the benefits.”