A dead man's photograph

Had this flashback as I was driving today, thinking of nothing...Maksim is sitting at the table, possibly on this day. In front of him is the cardboard box with the letters, and as he goes through them he finds something else - a photograph. It shows his father in uniform; perhaps he had his picture taken when he was drafted into the army, so his family would have something to remember him by.

Maksim stares at the yellowing photo, into that stranger's face that is yet so familiar, so similar to his own face; he has his mother's dark eyes instead of his father's bright blue ones (of course you can't see that in a sepia-tone picture, but Natasha and his mother have told him) but apart from that, Maksim very much resembles his long-lost father. As Maksim thinks about all this, suddenly a great sadness wells up in him. How he wishes he had more memories of his father than just this single one, and he wishes he had been able to spend more time with him, to get to know his father. But, like so many others of his generation, he would never have the opportunity...