Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm your host for this week, Kate Tellers. Last Sunday was Mother's Day in the US, and I have the construction paper collages to prove it. It's a holiday that can bring up a lot of feelings.

Personally, I loved on my kids. I missed my own mom, and there are so many other stories of motherhood. In light of this, and the fact that May is also mental health awareness month, we are bringing you two stories that sit in the intersection of motherhood and mental health.

First up this week is Jim Jekone. Jim told the story at a story slam in New York City, where the theme of the night was Mama Rules. Here's Jim live at the Moth.

You're going to stand straight up and see, you've got to come closer. There it is.

Okay. I found a hug after. It was a Sunday evening in the fall. I was 25 years old. My dad called, and he said, Jim, I'm really sorry to bother you.

But I need your help. Can you please come over at your mom? I said, yes, I hung up the phone. I didn't have to ask him what he needed help with. See for pretty much as far back as I can remember my mom had these periods in her life.

Well, she wasn't quite right. My earliest realization came when I was about seven years old. My mom called an emergency family meeting.

And when she had me and my siblings all lined up on the couch, the youngest about five, the oldest about 11, she wanted us to come clean with what she suspected was our drug use.

I was really confused. I looked at my dad and he was had his face in his hands and he was crying. I looked at my mom and she was smiling.

And even at seven, I knew that that smile didn't belong. My mom is the one that would force my barber to cut off on my hair when I was 12 years old for reasons I'll never know.

She became more hoarder and she would give us gifts of shopping bags for the Rose Effectively Garbage. She's the only grandparent that couldn't be left alone with a grandchildren because you never knew which mom you were going to get.

But my mom also gave me my love for art. She was an art history major and she exposed this kids to all forms of art and she encourages to pick up any form that we wanted.

She gave me my love for classical music. It was forever playing on the AM radio on the shelf above the kitchen table.

I guarantee in my neighborhood I was the only kid in there would have concerted us. She's the one that would dance with my dad. I would never see them happier than when they danced.

My mom was the one that taught me it was okay to go out and play in the rain. Not to get rid of me but to make me use my imagination to make me make the best of any situation put in front of me.

And I'd be the only kid out there in my raincoat, my boots, and a popsicle stick. And I'd be riding the imaginary rapids along the curb.

I pulled up in front of my father's house. I went into the kitchen where my mother was seated.

She didn't even acknowledge that I came into the room. She was smoking a cigarette and staring at the wall.

But when I said, Mom, why don't we take a ride? She perked up and said, Jimmy, that's a good idea. We haven't gone for a drink in a really long time.

Me and my mom had never gone for a drink. And that ride, she only asked me one question, where were we going?

I told her the truth. I said, I was worried about her and I wanted to get a check down at the hospital. No more questions. She waited in a waiting room.

The triage nurse called us into a small office off the hallway. And the nurse thought it'd take my mother's vitals as I was filling up papers on a clipboard.

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