#004 Evidence of the Essay: the narrative essay CROSSING by Stacy Nigliazzo, published by Annals of Emergency Medicine, Volume 87, Issue 3, 380-390, in March 2026.
https://www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-0644(25)01305-8/fulltext
Can you describe the step-by-step process of researching and writing this essay from beginning to end; including dates when you began writing the essay and when you finished the essay?
I began writing this essay in the autumn of 2024 (Bottom LEFT,) and finished it just after the first of the year in 2025. (Bottom RIGHT) I was thinking about personal and professional identity; its mosaic composition.
I ultimately arrived at the conclusion that the two cannot be separated. Several themes emerged, each amplifying who I am as a person and as a professional caregiver: my mother, favorite works of literature, mortality, ghosts, and the unrelenting pace of the hospital—of life in general.
BELOW A Stacy’s mother, a nurse
BELOW B Stacy, a nurse
In a Station of the Metro has always been one of my favorite poems, though I’ve always found Ezra Pound to be a problematic figure. I wanted to highlight the beauty of this poem while acknowledging the precarity of Pound’s legacy. The unrelenting progression of a train station also struck me as an apt metaphor for the hospital, and for life, as well as the idea that all of us, patients and caregivers alike, are temporary travelers on this planet.
BELOW: Pound by E.O. Hoppe on the cover of Pavannes and Divisions (1918)
I chose to illustrate composite sketches of three memorable patients in this piece: a man shunned because of his AIDS diagnosis, a young adult living on the street, and a boy who dies by suicide. Every caregiver has such cases they can’t forget.
BELOW: Homeless man in Paris, France.
My mother (BELOW with Stacy) shows up in much of my writing these days, though it took me about ten years to finally start writing about her illness and death, which fundamentally changed me. I have always been intrigued by ghosts and hospitals are full of them, literally and figuratively. Every caregiver knows this, though not everyone talks about it. It felt important to acknowledge it here.
Where did you do most of your writing for this essay?
In the evenings, I naturally wake between 2am and 4am unless I take a sleep aide. On my days off I usually take nothing, roll over upon waking, grab my laptop, and start writing. The colder the room the better. I wrote this essay over several chilly middle-of-the-nights.
Screenshot
What is the thesis statement or the main idea of the essay?
There is a path that exists beyond diagnosis and treatment; a point of crossing marked by shifting circles of awareness and inquiry. This essay explores such paths while addressing the following questions: How does literature inform our shared humanity? How does caregiver identify evolve? How can we navigate the unknowable and the unthinkable in our daily work?
Can you give us a short excerpt that you feel is the best evidence to prove your thesis statement or main idea?
I suppose the essay’s ending best illustrates the main ideas of my essay:
From the platform, I find my face in the window of a breathless passenger car. I see what others see, what Mom saw when she stepped through her skin, my skin. Her face.
In this crossing station, we are all travelers.
BELOW: Stacy (right) with her mother and brother.
What is your experience of writing this excerpt?
I was thinking about Pound’s Metro car and about seeing my blurry reflection in the elevator doors at the hospital, and also about how, as caregivers, we are constantly in motion. The older I get the more I feel I resemble my mother, physically. I am now 53 years old, which is how old she was when she died. Putting this all into words helped me clarify and understand who I am as a person, how I arrived here, and why I do this work.
#001 Evidence of the Essay: “The Beast in Your Head” by Cynthia Marie Hoffman, published in SUN Magazine in August of 2024
#002 Evidence of the Essay “Haunting Houses” from THE MISSING GIRL by Jacqueline Doyle, published by Black Lawrence Press on September 19, 2017.
#003 Evidence of the Essay “Imposter Outsider” by Mary Camarillo, published by Women Writers, Women Books on August 21, 2025