Any photo of any child makes us think of our own, or the child we once were. When the photos show children suffering or lost, we quiver with a grief that feels personal.

That sensation can trigger a response in the heart, a sudden attention to a faraway issue that was abstract and unending, too many words, too often the same. When the photo goes viral, millions of hearts can be touched. People whose hearts are touched talk about it, even in high places. Changed hearts can change minds and ultimately policy and history.

On Wednesday the world saw images of a Syrian refugee, three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a Turkish beach, as his family fled the civil war.