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LifeStory
Barbara Marshall McNeil
What's the best piece of advice your mom ever gave you?
My mother’s best advice has been “don’t ever let fear stop you.” My extended family members would often jokingly say, “Your mother is crazy.” They used it to explain how different she was from everyone else in our family. She was fiercely independent and bold and in your face if she thought it was necessary. Despite being the youngest of her siblings, she was the self-appointed arbiter of disputes in our family, and while others tiptoed around difficult topics or conversations, she confronted them outright. As I became an adult, I started to understand what others mistook for “crazy” was a sort of fearlessness or boldness in the face of fear that she embodies to this day. I’m grateful for her advice and example.
