Michael J. Fox on Staying Positive After His Mother’s Death: ‘She’d Never Add Up the Losses’

Over his three decades battling Parkinson’s disease, Michael J. Fox has notoriously harnessed the power of positivity. It’s an instinct that he can trace back to his mother Phyllis, who died in September at the age of 92.

“My mother lived a long, wonderful life. There was not a more revered woman,” Fox, 61, shares in this week’s PEOPLE cover story for the Kindness issue. “She was a sweet person. You knew you’d get a fair hearing. And she loved to laugh—she laughed like crazy.”

When he revealed his Parkinson’s diagnosis to his mother following his diagnosis in 1991 at age 29, Phyllis was worried.