UZUZODA DUBA 'THINGS HAPPEN IN THEIR WON TIME

THE ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK ACTRESS LOST HER MOM TO CANCER JUST TWO MONTHS AFTER SHE GOT MARRIED AND WON AN EMMY. IN A NEW MEMOIR, SHE SHARES HER JOURNEY AND THE LESSONS SHE'LL PASS ON TO HER BABY DAUGHTER

- DANA ROSE FALCONE

Since welcoming her daughter Adaiba in November 2023, Uzo Aduba has found the age-old adage that we all become our parents to be true."My mom is famous for going, 'No, no, no,' when she's talking to you," says the actress, 43. "I never said this before, but now I say it all the time to my daughter. The first time it came out of my mouth, I was like, 'Who said that?"

" Aduba, 43, who rose to fame thanks to Netflix's Orange Is the New Black, honors her late mom, Nonyem, in her upcoming memoir The Road Is Good: How a Mother's Strength Became a Daughter's Purpose, out Sept. 24.

Her mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2019, and Aduba writes movingly about the intertwined joy and sorrow of their last months together as she wed filmmaker Robert Sweeting in September 2020, celebrated her Emmy win for Mrs. America a week later, then grieved her mom's November 2020 death while playing a therapist on In Treatment.

Most of all, Aduba wishes her mother could've been there throughout her pregnancy with Adaiba. "When I was pregnant, I would have strokes of sadness because I was like, 'Of all the moments I wish she could be here for, it was this.' And I was nervous that I didn't have what I thought everybody else had, which was their mom to show you how to do this, to help me be a great mother to my daughter," she says.