Creative Writing Awards 2022 Winner: “Paperwhites” by Gayelan Tietje-Ulrich

The 19th Annual Creative Writing Awards (CWA) were held on May 5, 2022, a celebration of the liberal arts deeply embedded in the science and clinical practice of the Yale School of Nursing (YSN) community. After a keynote speech by nurse and author Beth Cavenaugh, RN, BSN, CHPN each of the three winners read their work aloud. Family Nurse Practitioner student Gayelan Tietje-Ulrich ’24 MSN made the top three with this submission.

Paperwhites

My mother’s garden bloomed each spring;
tulip, narcissus, magnolia, redbud, forsythia.
The budding faces – promises after long
hibernation.

And each year she would position
paperwhites at the window.
I would watch their roots crowd the ball jar of water,
wait for the familiar scent to fill the house.

Towards the end, she would not leave bed
often but when she did the garden appeared
tidy, the paperwhites newly arranged.

I could not adequately prepare
for the exchange of roles –
Daughter became Mother,
Nurse became Patient.
It was a slip into eternal winter, a
season of grief that did not thaw.

Without her, the pilgrimage for
paperwhites ushers in an end
and a beginning.
It is the perennial reminder of her impact, and my own
choice to step into a profession that gently,
unassumingly carries rebirth, grief, acceptance.

It is one in which she is forever present, as
the seasons of change continue to unfold.

Read More CWA 2022 Winners 

Read the award-winning entries of the other two 2022 honorees: Sajni Persad for “My Most Dearest Ruthie,” Michaela Gabrielle Serafica for “Dancing in my Golden Terno,” and Gayelan Tietje-Ulrich for “Paperwhites.”