Your mother is a kind of person I admire extravagantly in general — an adventurous brave one! (I also admire her in particular for the loving and thoughtful and talented daughter she raised and encouraged…)
There are, however, many kinds of bravery. A long time ago I came across this quote from Tolkien, in his work On Fairy-Stories, which spoke so directly to my physically cowardly, unadventurous self that I find I copied it TWICE into my commonplace book:
“The dweller in the quiet and fertile plains may hear of the tormented hills and the unharvested sea and long for them in his heart. For the heart is hard though the body be soft.”
In this sense, I think I am hard-hearted, and it will suffice.
I love your last sentence; I think that is exactly the goal.