I feel like the Dad in the movie A Christmas Story - I WON!! I WON!!!

This has been super happy day!!!

I entered a local writing contest here recently and I just got a call from the editor of the paper- I WON!!! I get to meet Maya Angelou!!! I am SO EXCITED!!!

This was the contest:

One Book 2007 Writing Contest
Deadline: September 1st 2007
Contest Guidlines:
Since it was first published in 1969, Maya Angelou's " I know why the Caged Bird Sings" has remained a favorite of readers of all ages and backgrounds.
In 500 words or less, reflect on what the book has meant to you. Entries may be prose or poetry. They will be judged on originality as well quality of writing.
Student contest: Students from Rome and Floyd County public and private schools are eligible to compete. A winner will be chosen from each school-Plus one high school level home school student. Community Contest: All citizens of Rome and Floyd County are eligible. Two winners will be selected.

Here's my winning entry... it gets printed in the paper on Sunday and the editor said they are considering having the winners also read aloud their winning essays so they can have them online since Angelou is known for reading her work aloud.

Anyway, here it is:

Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is probably the first book of real significance I can remember reading. A voracious reader, I have read many novels, both those of literary acclaim, and those just for fun, but this one is one of the first few I can still remember feeling emotional highs and lows while reading.
As a mother myself, I now understand better the end of the book, appreciating the true depth of emotion that comes with having a child that is solely dependent upon you. But more than that, this book is about triumph. Triumph of the human spirit over adversity beyond anything you could possibly imagine ever having to go through. And it is that triumph that I have been holding onto with all my will and might over the last eight weeks.
Eight weeks ago, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl 9 weeks early. Weighing 5 pounds and 3 ounces, and 16 inches long, my baby girl was perfect in every way, except she was born still. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wonder why my daughter was taken from me. There are days that my two-year old daughter kisses my belly and says, “Mommy, when baby being born?” and I hold back tears and try to explain that the baby is gone away, that instead of having a sister here with us, my daughter has a sister that’s an angel. She is too young to understand all of this, but she accepts my explanations and we move on to the next item of interest to her two-year-old brain. Caged Bird is a book that reminds me that the human spirit has the will to overcome anything. Time and time again we hear of those stories, women who, like Angelou, have survived degradation and abuse and then gone on to create unimagined beauty. Stories like those of Aron Ralston, who cut off his arm rather than die alone in a cave, pinned in by a boulder.
It is these stories, and the light that my two year old daughter brings to my life that help me get through each day.
What does Caged Bird mean to me you ask? It means hope. Hope that one day I won’t hurt so much; that my arms won’t ache to hold a baby I will never again see. Hope that each day I have the strength to be the Mom that is an honor to both my daughters lives, both the one I hold onto and kiss and hug each day, and the one whose only memories I have are of a painful birth and holding her warm weight in my arms for a half an hour. I treasure writers who have the courage to put their desperation and found hope into words so that people like myself can hold onto it tight and know that it can happen to us too.