Do any of us truly know our parents? The mystery deepens if one loses a parent during childhood. Andrea Siegel takes us on her journey to find out more about her father, Joseph Peter Siegel, who died of leukemia when she was twelve.

She knew that he grew up in the 1930s and 1940s on Manhattan's Upper West Side and attended Ethical Culture schools. He graduated from Colgate University with a philosophy degree. After serving in the Air Force, he began his career on Wall Street. In 1958, he married her mother and raised three children, of which she was the second. What else was he beyond this resume?

Andrea remembers the aroma of percolating coffee and the fried eggs he cooked for Sunday breakfasts. The feel of the threads of his prayer shawl as she braided and unbraided them during High Holy Day services. His short brown-black hair against a crisp white shirt with a dark silk necktie. The sting of his shaving cream when he dabbed it on the end of her nose. And the smell of chemotherapy coming off his body like fog.

To connect her childhood memories with the context of his entire life's reach, Andrea contacted her father's friends, co-workers, military buddies, former girlfriends, fellow Little League coaches, and his entire high school graduating class. Rich with the anecdotes that naturally collect around a man, Snapshots From The Heart is the outcome of these gathered stories.