Join BookTrib

BookTrib has the honor of sharing this year’s winners for the 8th Annual Write a DearReader contest. Winners were selected from hundreds of entries. DearReader offers this competition each year just to encourage writing. It’s all about writing for fun.

Today’s story is DearReader’s 2nd place winner. Watch for the posting of the 1st place winning submission this week.3rd place has already posted you can find it by clicking here .  Maybe you’ll consider entering your story in the 9th annual DearReader contest happening summer 2013.  – Enjoy

Dear Reader,

Congratulations to Brenda Green, this year’s 2nd place winner in my Write a Dear Reader Contest. Brenda’s been a member of the book club for years and decided to enter the writing contest because she “is a writer,” which is the perfect mindset to keep her in the habit of journaling every day…

“I started out writing in college, but ended up working as a computer analyst for the government for 30 years.” Now retired, Brenda sells Avon, and she’s able to take her mother with her in the car when she calls on customers.

One of the things I loved about Brenda’s entry was that she started writing her column with one topic in mind, and at the end realized she’d written about something  else. Getting out of the way of yourself, is a writer’s best friend.

What will Brenda do with her $200.00 prize? “I’ll tithe 10 percent and spend the rest on buying my mother something really special.”

Congratulations again, Brenda. Thanks for entering this year’s writing contest, and please give your mother a big hug from me.

- Suzanne Beecher
Author, Muffins and Mayhem

2nd Place

Winner:  Brenda Green

My mother will be 96 in October. She has dementia and is now in an Assisted Living facility. Her body, praise the Lord, still goes strong but her mind has slowly drifted away. When I visit her, I ask questions or bring favorite objects, sometimes old photographs, to bring her back to me. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t. Often we just sit beside each other and hold hands, saying nothing.

When I was young my parents divorced. My father moved away and we had little contact with him. Mother was both father and mother. She would work all day then come home and act as referee between m sister and me, help with our homework, clean house and pay the bills. I was an extremely selfish, self-centered child and took everything she did for granted. I was not much help. When my grandmother came to live with us after my grandfather’s death Mother had help. But then “Big Mama” had a massive stroke. She never left her bed from that day on. My mother quit work, we went on welfare and she took care of her mother. Big Mama had the master bedroom. Mama, my sister and I all slept in the full size bed in the other room, sharing closet space.

Ten years later when my grandmother had another massive stroke and died, my mother was proud that her mother had never, in 10 years, had one bed sore or any other health problems. Life went on. I was married, my sister was married and mother was left alone. My husband (who is beyond wonderful) suggested we ask her to come live with us. She did so for 32 years, until dementia became more than we could handle.

Funny, this story started out to be how you should write names of people on the back of pictures, because I have so many old pictures with no idea who they are and now when I ask mother she shakes her head and says, “I don’t know.” Instead this is a love letter to the most wonderful woman I have ever known, my mother, Evelyn Wade Green.