Documenting our past through photography.

Do you ever wonder how children with no documented past (like found through photography,) ever reach that place of personal identity? I was 30years old when I first saw a picture of my brother. My stomach did a flip and tears stung my eyes. I gasped and cried out, "I know that little boy!"  Suddenly standing there holding the picture gave me proof of a life I had only shared verbally. I was so excited to share that little picture with my own children and with my husband. Suddenly I had a starting point of such!
She Ain't My Sister, page 17: "Old photographs were tucked inside dusty books. A shelf held bottles of paint and brushes stiff with leftover paint. Mommy would call us into the sunlight to show us pictures of strange people with unsmiling pasty faces. .........She would read out loud the names and dates scribbled on the back. ............She would gasp when she read the dates and then sigh before dropping them into the garbage can ............................................."