It was a casual discovery. I was flicking through some photographs of my grandparents when I came across several pictures of a very young man whom I had never seen before. I know my extended family pretty well, and I could have sworn he was not someone I knew. At the same time, though, he looked vaguely familiar, and in any case it seemed somewhat bizarre for my grandparents to have kept so many relics of a stranger. So I asked my father and it emerged the young man was his uncle Alberto—my grandfather’s brother—of whose existence I had not been aware until then.

I was shocked. Over the years, both my grandmother and my great-aunt kept our family history alive by sharing their stories with me and my cousins. But no one had ever mentioned this uncle. From what I have since gathered, he died very young. I suppose his memories were too painful, too raw, and my family found it easier not to speak of him than to deal with them—in the same way as my father and his brothers never speak of the little sister they lost when she was just a toddler.

Brothers: my grandfather with his brother Alberto a short time before he died

But the pictures, religiously stored for more than sixty years, tell me he was never forgotten. And this little collage, which I made for Theme Thursday, is to ensure that he will continue to be remembered.