April 2012, I'm in Poland for a month, I decide to take a sentimental journey to my grandmother's house that is about to be raced. At first, I think about collecting few of her head scarfs left folded in wardrobe as if she was still alive. The hand-colored wedding photograph hanging just below pope's portrait drags my attention too. The house smells like damp, it's cold and dark though nobody lives here, the beds are made. Big duvets, stuffed with goose feathers remind me of her, there is a dead wasp laying on the top of her bed. Is that it? Is this my final goodbye?

 I look around and photograph objects I cannot take with me. Have I ever looked that close? I have never stopped for a second to think about her life, I was holding so many things in my hands, her life history surrounded me. She raised me when my parents were to busy divorcing, she died 5 years ago in a sleep. Did I ever thank her for what she has done for me? Did I pay enough attention?

Collecting objects led me to discovery of letters that I find under the floor. I don't need to open them to know what they are about. My mother once told me a story about her mother being in love with a boy, who went to States and left her behind, not able to come back because of the war. She had to marry the neighbour, my grandfather, although she kept corresponding with the love of her life.

 First, I felt like invading my grandmother's privacy, there was a reason why she hid them. I put away the love letters, there was no need to read them, the story was already projecting in my head. I took the ones from friends to scan and show with photographs as representation of the other ones I found. I drove back to my city with scarfs, two albums and a big wedding photograph.

For three days I tried to sort old photographs while asking questions about places, people, past, the time long before I was born. The stories I've been told, the photographs I've taken, took me back to my grandmother's village. Now I knew where her lover's house use to be, in what church she got married or where she gave birth to her first child. I was ready to recreate her story in my own way, adjusting her past to my present with connection to the place. I could follow places from old photographs and photograph them again, knowing what they meant to her. She had fears and desires, she lived through happy and sad times, she worked hard and loved her children more than anything in the world. Knowing and feeling all that made me complete my sentimental journey and say proper goodbyes.