The same deadline

I was nine when my great-grandmother forgot my name. She had taught me Polish before I knew English; for a dyslexic kid still finding letters in a new alphabet, her voice had been the bridge between my old country and my new one.

The morning her eyes went empty, I learned that the most catastrophic disease in the world is silent, slow, and treated as fate.

Everything I build chases the same deadline: keep one more grandparent from forgetting the name across the dinner table.

Piotr Kierner

From essays, 2025 and 2026.