In honor of Mother's Day, TODAY Moms is celebrating Mom Heroes, those everyday wonder women who quietly change the world. More than 700 readers submitted essays for our Mom Hero contest, and we wish we could give everyone a prize. Ultimately, the winners told us beautiful stories about mothers who are unsung heroes. Check back every day this week for a new winner.
Do you know a mom hero who deserves thanks? Send her a TODAY.com e-card.
By Laura Mullen
My mom, Linda Kerr, has always been inspirational to me, but even more so since I have become a parent to two beautiful girls.
My mother suffers from chronic depression and post traumatic stress disorder from events in her childhood. During the worst of her depressions, she had the strength to leave her family and go to a hospital to help make herself a better person, for us and for her. She was gone for nine months, during which she developed coping skills and many insights to her disease and disorder. She came back to her family as a new person, a new wife, a new mother. For that alone she should be recognized.
However, it goes even further than that. I have now been diagnosed as bi-polar and have postpartum psychosis, a rare and extreme form of postpartum depression. Just weeks after my youngest daughter was born, I became a hysterical mess. I felt that there was no reason for living and that I had cursed my daughters by bringing them into this world.
I remember one night very clearly: I called my mom and told her that I was not doing so well and that I was scared. She came to my house, 30 miles in the middle of the night, to sit on the floor and let me cry in her lap.
Every day she gives me strength to keep being a good mother to my girls, to be a daughter that she can be proud of. She is my inspiration to seek treatment for myself and to help any others that I can who face living in these difficult times with any type of mental disorder, and to make more women aware of postpartum depression and psychosis.
My mom is truly a lifesaver.
(Editor's note: Winner announced subject to verification of eligibility and compliance with Official Rules. This essay has been edited for length and clarity.)
Each winner of the Mom Hero contest will receive a free Xbox. But wait, there's more! Anyone with an Xbox can be a big winner this Mother's Day -- download the TODAY app on your Xbox and use it to watch TODAY videos, and you could win a trip for two to Beaches Resorts. Click here for details.
For Mother's Day gift guides, video and more, check out our special section here.
More stories about inspiring moms and amazing kids:
Pronounced dead, revived by mom's hug
After the storm: Don't take a moment for granted