When I was a little girl, I was never far from my mom’s side. I was the epitome of a Mama’s girl particularly with being an extremely shy and introverted child. For those that know her, my mom didn’t have a shy or introverted bone in her body. New experiences or changes in my life always brought me great anxiety. My mom had a way about her though, that made those anxiety provoking moments seem less terrifying. She’d make them appear less daunting by giving me options that I could wrap my head around. She’d say “try it once”, “give it a week” or even said once, “go one year and then we’ll talk again” (this was when I wasn’t sure I wanted to go off to college). I remember her taking my complete stranger of a roommate, when I was a freshman at Purdue, to lunch and shopping for matching bedding to help ease my roommate and I into a very new and strange living situation. She was my rock growing up. Becoming a mom myself in 1994, I actually went and lived with my parents for...