A relative’s old photograph can show a life that parenthood later overshadowed.

People existed in full before they became somebody’s parent or grandparent. A photograph from before that shows a person with friends you never heard of, a job, a way of standing, plans that may or may not have happened, and none of it fits the role you have always known them in. The role came later and covered a great deal. Realising this is often the beginning of actually knowing a relative.

Ask an older relative about a specific year rather than about the family. What they were doing at twenty-two, who they went about with, what they wanted then: those questions usually open something the usual conversations never reach.