No one helped me get into university — I was admitted thanks to my own knowledge and perseverance. My parents worked in physics, while I chose philology, planning to become a teacher. Fate, however, had other plans — I defended my dissertation and stayed on to work at the same university where I studied.

My mother passed away a year and a half ago after bravely battling a long illness. My father could not survive the loss of his wife, with whom he had spent four decades. Twelve months without his beloved turned him into a different man — he aged, began losing his memory, and at times didn’t even recognize relatives.