It's the sort of photograph any parent would want.

All five children lined up in a neat little row, from youngest to oldest, like a set of

stairs.

Sure, the photograph is old, and it's more than a little grainy and worn around the edges,

but hey, it's family, right?

Each of the five children is dressed in their Sunday best, and each of them has that polite,

yet annoyed look on their face that kids forced to pose for a family photo tend to get.

All except for the youngest.

In fact, her eyes aren't even open, and her head is tilted backward ever so slightly.

And there's a good reason for that.

She's dead.

A century and a half ago, her parents suffered a loss that crushed them so deeply that

grasped for any threat of hope they could reach, and they found it in photography.

By gathering their remaining children alongside the body of their dead daughter, they attempted

to capture a moment they would never experience again.

People have always struggled with letting go.

For most of history, once a person was dead, they were gone.

Sure, they might live on through story, and in the minds of the people who knew them,

the time would eventually wear all of that away.

While some had paintings to hang on the wall, the vast majority of humanity just had to move

on.

But photography changed all of that.

...