The actor remembers his mother, Phyllis, who passed away in September at 92.
Michael J. Fox has embraced the power of positivity throughout his three-decade battle with Parkinson’s disease. It’s a practice he picked up from his mother, Phyllis, who died in September at 92.
“There was no more revered woman than my mother,” Fox, 61, said of his mother, who had a long and meaningful life. “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 was frightened when he told her he had Parkinson’s disease at 29.
“When I launched the foundation, I was still working in television and movies and starting a family,” Fox, who married actress Tracy Pollan in 1988, adds. Their son Sam, now 33, was born in 1989, and in 1995, the couple received twin daughters Aquinnah and Schuyler, now 27 and 21, respectively, and their youngest, Esmé.
“When she asked how I did it, I told her I just walked forward.” I’m not interested in reflecting on the past or lamenting that something will not happen. My mum shared my sentiments. She’d never calculate the losses. She’d consider the benefits.”
Fox attributes his lessons in endurance to his mother and father, William, who died in 1990. Fox and his four siblings were military kids (William served in the Canadian services for 25 years), and Phyllis was the glue that held the family together.
“Army wives are adaption masters,” he says. “They just know how to deal with a new situation, get the house in order, get the schools set up, and acquire a job on the side — since military pay is nothing. We didn’t get it as youngsters. I see what you mean now.”
The actor, who has collected more than $1.5 billion for Parkinson’s research through the Michael J. Fox Foundation, admits that a fractured hand, shoulder, right arm, and elbow took a toll on his optimism over the last year.
But he’s upbeat today, “rocking and rolling” as his rehabilitation nears completion. “I’m just getting to the point where the last of my injuries are healing; my arm feels fantastic,” he says. “Life is fascinating. You receive exactly what you expect.”
Fox recalls a maxim he wrote while recovering from a risky spinal cord operation to remove a tumor on his spine in 2018.
“If I can find thanksgiving in anything I do and in any situation I’m in, if I can find one little thing to be glad for, it turns the whole situation around and allows for the possibility of grace, of something beautiful happening,” says the actor. “I’m just getting back into the swing of things, so it’s quite good.”
