We were going through old photos of my Mother’s recently, and I came upon a photo of me at about 5 years old, caught in full belly laugh. I don’t remember the clothes I had on, which were what passed for rugged play-clothes of the day, or the horrid short bangs and barrette I sported, or even the picture being taken, but no doubt it was my father. What was also unusual, was there seemed to be no obvious occasion, typically the reason for taking these photos of my brother and me.

I was in the sunroom of my childhood home, and while my brother was smiling, I was clearly in near-convulsions of laughter. And I know that laugh. It’s as close to the essence of me as you can get, and here it was, captured through the lens of a long-departed camera in one of those old black-and-white photos with the curlicue trim.

I would have sworn I developed that laugh in adulthood, but the evidence was undeniable: At five years old, I had already begun to be me.

Not long after in the sorting process, we found a picture of my mother with a woman none of us could recognize. Perusing it more closely, my brother instantly said he’d never seen my mother look like that, and when I looked at, I had to agree. Who it looked like, he went on to say, was me, with that signature reaction of mine to anything I found hilarious.

So, he knew I was like this all along? Gee whiz, why didn’t I?

Now, I’m naturally given to self-analysis, and I have to say I was taken aback by these finds. Could this behavioral trait have come from my mother? Some genetic hand-me-down that became a lifelong behavior pattern for me, while in Mother’s time, such exuberance was to be stifled?

No matter what, I was grateful for the technology of the camera, giving me a gift I wouldn’t otherwise have received.

Not long after, I cleared out a much-neglected closet, chasing damage from a leak in my roof. I found a damp paper bag, falling apart but still holding dozens of 35 mm slides, each in its hard cardboard holder, half of them coldly wet. But the film was pristine, and I realized, the slides weren’t actually mine.

They belonged to a boyfriend I dated in my twenties, a fellow I hadn’t seen in decades, and who I’d recently learned had passed away of a sudden heart attack two years ago.

I’m ashamed to say that my first reaction was to throw out the whole soggy mess out, but then I thought better of it. I picked up several of the wet slides and held them to the light. There was the picture of a young boy, perhaps eight years old, and then I remembered. He had a son. That son must be nearly forty by now, and his father is gone.

I spread the slides out, determined to dry them as best I could, and now they’re actually in pretty good shape. I haven’t found his son yet, but I will, and I’ll gladly hand over the whole kit. They could be missing puzzle pieces from his past, a belated greeting card from his father, memories that need only a nudge to come back to life, and hopefully, they’ll be good ones.

Our embrace of the photograph has taken us from sturdy photos on robust paper to slides, handset in cardboard, and now digital photos, which are simply just bits. It’s going to be tough keep them safe in the decades ahead. Yet it’s pretty obvious – we have to.

I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.