When I left Poland for Canada to begin my Ph.D. in biology, I packed the essentials -- papers, coats, a few books, a few photos. But I also brought something most wouldn't expect: a white linen dress, hand-embroidered more than a century ago by my great-aunt Dyzia.
It wasn't practical. It wasn't necessary. But it was vital.
My great-aunt Dyzia, Dioniza Pusz, was born into a noble family in the Podlasie region of Poland in 1901. She was one of eight siblings. As a teenager, she spun flax into thread, wove linen on a loom and stitched this dress entirely by hand. It's white, delicate and detailed with colorful embroidery and tiny hooks along the side. It carries the softness of summer and the quiet strength of the woman who made it.
She never had children of her own, but she passed the dress to my mother as a wedding gift -- a way of keeping a legacy alive. My mother never wore it, but she kept it, safe and waiting. When she gave it to me, I didn't yet know how much I would need it.
I earned my Ph.D. in biology in Saskatchewan, Canada, in a place where the prairies stretch for miles and most of the year is buried under snow. I was there with my two sons, and together, we made a warm life inside the cold. But after I graduated, they chose to return to Poland. They weren't ready for another move, another unknown. I understood. I respected it. But their absence left a new kind of silence.
When the opportunity to pursue a postdoc at Stanford arrived, I didn't hesitate. It was everything I had worked for -- a chance to do what I love, in one of the most inspiring environments I could imagine. And after all those winters, I was ready to be done with the cold. I was ready to see what the sun could do for me.
As I packed again, I folded the dress into my suitcase -- carefully, like always. Across the ocean it came, again.
California has given me so much. I row on the bay with a team who welcomed me from the start and made me feel like I belong. I work on research that excites me. I've found a rhythm here that feels like it fits. I'm surrounded by brilliance, purpose, and curiosity.
But.
Sometimes, in the stillness of late evenings or quiet moments between lab work, I miss home. I miss my sons. I miss the everyday intimacy of Poland -- the language, the shared cultural shorthand, the way things feel without needing to explain them.
And within the dress, stitched quietly into its fabric, there is more than memory. There is the spirit of the women in my family who came before me. Their hands, their patience, their resilience. Their way of creating beauty out of necessity. And there is also something enchanted: the echo of a Polish summer meadow, the scent of warm grass and wild herbs, the sound of insects humming in the afternoon light. I see the flax fields blooming blue like the ocean, swaying in the wind like waves, soft and endless. The dress carries all of that -- not just history but the landscape of where I come from. The land. The season. The silence between women who understand each other without needing words.
I don't always wear it. Sometimes, I just look at it. Run my fingers over the embroidery. And I feel them, my great-aunt, my mother, the generations of women before me. It's not just a garment. It's a presence. A tether. A quiet affirmation that I'm not alone, even as I live and work far from where I began.
The dress reminds me that identity isn't static -- it's something we weave as we go. I'm Polish, yes. I'm a scientist. I'm a mother. I'm a woman building a life across borders, across time zones, across languages. And through all of that, the dress comes with me -- not just as a memory but as a witness.
It carries my roots while I stretch forward.
One day, I'll pass it on again. Not just as a keepsake but as a story still unfolding. Because this dress, stitched in a Polish village by a teenage girl from a noble family, is now making new history. With me, here, in California.