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In my own family, my mother had my sister when I was 15 and for various reasons, I was extremely involved in raising her.

Seeing my mother become very strong and very independent had a huge impact on me.

My grandmother spoiled my father rotten, and he grew up expecting women to do whatever he wanted. When he married my beautiful mother, Elsa, he expected her to give up her career as a champion ballroom dancer and become a good wife and mother, which she dutifully did.

I am lucky to have had an attentive, curious and loving dad and heart-smart, down-to-earth, gifted mother. They changed the outlooks of their own lives and have never forgotten the people and organizations that helped them dream bigger than their circumstances should have allowed.

I consider myself lucky to be an only child because if I had other siblings, my mother would not have been able to take me to every audition and be so supportive of my career.

My mother made a choice. And when I was younger, I judged her for making that choice. Then I got older and got to be an adult, and I realized that was the ultimate sacrifice that any parent and any mother could possibly make.

My mother was a single working mother; she started having children very young. There was a tension inside her about who she wanted to be and what she wanted to do and how she couldn't achieve the things she wanted to.

My mother had me when she was 15. My father died before I was born. So my mother was a teenage widow, and she used herself as her greatest example so I wouldn't end up in her position.

My mother, brave woman, lost her whole family when she decided to marry a black man in the '60s. When the marriage fell apart, she had to come back to her family.

My mother's death brought me to my knees. She was my hero, my role model, my very best friend. I spoke to her every single day of my life. I really tried hard when I grew up to make her proud of me.