2026 Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prize, Grand Prize Winner – Middle Grade Category
A graveyard is where the most flowers are given—where love is offered when it is too late to be received. For souls who are recognized once people realize they’re really gone. Some offerings, the others apologies made of nostalgia. Though she wonders if there is a graveyard where she’s able to lay flowers to the ground for herself. For a culture that she once tried to outgrow and a language she fails to speak proficiently in.
She’s scared that Taiwan will become the graveyard that she dreads so much returning to with only flowers. She told herself that she was leaving to chase an opportunity, not using it as an excuse to be scared to stay.
Anna dreamt of home often. They were all the same warming memories that clung to her, threatening to slip from the back of her mind. Reminiscing was too much for her, she didn’t have the time to think about it—what did it matter now? But the distance between her and Taipei came with teeth. It sank its ragged edges into the illusion of another life she carefully built.
It was exactly 3:04 in the morning when her dreams nudged her awake. The shadows in her room crept toward her suitcase in the corner. It was filled to the brim of emergency shirts in case she’d sweat through all of her clothes in the hot Taiwan sun.
Anna stayed unmoving in her bed until first light seeped through her thin curtains, burning her tired eyes open. The lack of sleep kept her in the daze of her previous dreams, ripping her from a reality she did not yet want to live.
All Anna could feel now was the light touch of humidity and the saccharine scent of the lady across the street selling 蜜地瓜 on a deteriorating cart just as old as Anna remembered. But this was just her consciousness toying with her. There is only so much you can have—so much you can simply endure.
The illusion screamed at her and only then was Anna truly awake.
…
The graveyard was different from the last time she’d visited. A blur of time and ignorance had left it in dust, the occasional wind blowing away the dried petals of the flowers she had left a lifetime ago. It only pained Anna more knowing she didn’t have the bouquet she promised herself not to forget from the last time she came.
“妹妹, let’s go. The car is just over there. I’ll hold your suitcase, it must’ve been a long flight.” The familiar sound of her father’s voice tears her from her thoughts. His voice was featherlight—everything hers was not.
“It was, thank you 爸比.”
“I’m glad you’re back.” He said it with the regular nonchalance he emits.
“So am I.”
Anna followed him through the airport, the same one she had left crying years ago. The hum of confused tourists and excited families fled her ears the moment the airport doors shut behind her, leaving only the steady rhythm of her footsteps.
She stared at her aging father rolling her beaten up suitcase ahead. He wore the same blue collared shirt he always did, back hunched in the same gentle curve her mother always scolded him for.
He pushed the trunk open, chest rising before struggling to shove the suitcase in. Anna watched as his hands began shaking. All she could think of was the number of years she was gone, of how much his arms have grown thinner—of everything she’s missed.
“Did you eat on the plane?” Graying eyes looked at Anna through the rearview mirror. She nodded. “Your mom is waiting for you at home. I think she went grocery shopping for your arrival.”
Her breath stopped. “Mom’s gone, dad. Remember?” Suddenly her throat begged to snap shut, nails dug into her palm, knuckles whitening at the pressure. She wanted him so desperately to remember. Anna had forgotten how painfully slow Alzheimer’s could be.
“Oh. Yes, I remember now.” His voice was soft yet his eyes dulled. Anna stared at his laden eyes and wrinkling skin. She only looked away because he did.
If time was a gun, Anna could feel the cold hard metal pressed against the back of her head. She did not know if it was loaded. Just that it had been fired once.
…
Anna 3, chasing birds at the park
Anna 7, first dance class
Anna 12, braces are installed
Anna 16, first internship
Anna 18, graduation
“Anna?” Her father yelled from the kitchen. “Food’s ready!”
“Coming!” The word slipped out of her mouth by instinct. So many years of the same conversation had rushed back. Anna set the dusty photobook down from where she found it on the somehow immortal shelf in her old room.
The smell of her fathers version of 炒麵 slipped through the cracks of her room, forcing Anna out of the trance. The door clicked shut and she walked through the halls of her childhood home again. The walls were scattered with her mother’s old paintings, other spots darkened by the times Anna stuck stickers to them. The floors had dulled out by now, but the wood was still as strong as ever.
He sat on his usual seat at the end of the table, already more than halfway done with his bowl of food. “Eat up, 妹妹, you’ve gotten skinnier.”
She nodded, picking up the old wooden chopsticks where the bends of her fingers fit snuggly in. Anna looked across from her seat, she only realized just then. “Where’s 姊姊?”
“I called her earlier. She’ll be here tomorrow. Busy with the kids and all that.”
Anna remembered too. She had nephews she’d only met once. At her mother’s funeral—dressed in miniature black suits, not yet understanding the difference between life and death. Anna only saw them through pictures and glossy new years cards.
The scraping sound of wood and ceramic pulled her back. Her father was finishing his food when Anna hadn’t even touched hers. Quickly, she shoved the noodles into her mouth.
“I forgot how good this was.” she mumbled to herself. “Thank you, 爸比.” He was now cleaning up the kitchen, washing the dishes.
“When you finish eating, just leave the dishes in the sink. I’ll deal with it in the morning.” He says, hands rubbing vigorously under the spray of the water from the sputtering faucet. “Don’t stay up too late, Anna.” He added, like always.
She nodded, but he wasn’t looking. Anna carried her bowl to the sink after devouring a dish she didn’t realize she missed so much. The curtains weren’t pulled over the windows yet, but she could tell the world was already asleep when she thought the sun was only rising. Without another word, they both left the kitchen, leaving only the looming light over the dinner table turned on. Anna returned to her old room.
Her suitcase had settled itself in the little corner of her room where she moved her old stacks of books. Everything else was untouched, the same peeling wallpaper and floral lamp.
Anna laid on her bed that night, waiting for sleep to claim her. But it didn’t, not until the sounds of motorcycles outside stopped and the crickets were all that was left.
She blamed it on jet lag.
…
Day after day, Anna found herself hugging relatives and friends, greeting them with her broken mandarin. She couldn’t understand why the day continued to drag on, attempting to sedate every twinge of
uneasiness she felt. But with every lie she told herself, every thought bitten back, Anna knew the part missing was still buried away.
She spent a week wandering in the streets of her old neighborhood. Her intuition guided her through every old alley and shop, and there she memorized every intricate detail so she wouldn’t forget. Now it was her last day and she didn’t quite know what to do with the rest of her time.
“Anna, you coming?” Her older sister asked her, already holding her purse to leave with their father.
“Hm? I think I’m going to stay here. I need to finish packing.” Her consciousness knocked at the door of her final decisions.
In truth, Anna was done packing.
She sat still on the edge of her chair, wondering what it was that time would take from her next. Her knees were tucked under her chin, waiting for the right idea to come by.
The right idea never actually came. Instead, a place did.
And suddenly Anna was running. She ran and ran and ran until she finally arrived at the place that held her in between reality and illusion. She didn’t remember grabbing her keys or running down the stairs, only how impatient she felt waiting for each crosswalk to turn green.
Then there it was: the graveyard with its long and slinking arms—welcoming or not—Anna let it pull her in. She continued her trek beyond the gates without hesitation. Her eyes darted in each direction, cursing under her breath for forgetting which way it was.
By the time she reached the grave, Anna’s eyes were pink and her cheeks were sticky.
She could only read and re-read her mother’s name displayed across the headstone. The cold stung her face, chest tightening in a familiar knot. All she could do was let herself fall to the ground when her knees refused to work. The air was thinner and the wind blew colder in all directions. Around her, through her, as if she was just another marker in the field.
“I’m sorry.” Anna whispered. She didn’t know it was possible to feel so much and say so little.
She sat there silently, letting her memories graze her thoughts. Her chest heaved. In and out. She repeated it to herself until the wind stopped screaming and when the sun faded into an orange haze.
Anna slowly brought her head up, suddenly noticing a cluster of small flowers growing at the edge of the gate. She walked mindlessly to them, fingers pinching the stems as she picked them. One by one, until there was an uneven bundle of wildflowers in her hands.
The flowers weren’t perfect but she thought of them as a work in progress.
Anna brought the not-bouquet to her mother’s grave, and laid them down. The stems were a bit bent, and some of the petals had already begun to fall.
Still, she left them there.
The flowers would wilt by morning.
But Anna would be back with more.
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