Part 1
Part 2

Part 3

Stephan couldn’t bring himself to go to the campaign headquarters for the whole next week. He stayed home in bed, not even going to school. His mom had been expecting it, this withdrawal, because it happened every so often, and Stephan reacted in almost the same way each time. And like every mother who had seen her child hurt, she had always been on the lookout for the same pain. Unable to prevent it, she committed herself to comforting him as she had done before.

Years ago, when he was three, it became clear that there was something not right with the way he saw people. The first sign had been Stephan’s inability to recognize infrequent but repeat visitors. When his mom’s brother Darryl came over, Stephan would walk through the room slowly, eyeing him fearfully every few steps, until his mom scooped him up. He would be silent, a stricken look on his face. Sometimes, he would suddenly begin to cry, either with a long, wet cry, or a repetition of the word, “who? who?” even though Darryl had visited many times before. After all, this was his sister’s first child. His reaction only stopped when he seemed to recognize Darryl’s voice. Even so, he was reluctant to let his uncle hold him until his mom explained again that her beloved brother was a friend, and that they loved him. Eventually, Stephan always calmed down enough to let his uncle hold him.

The real worry began after they went Halloween shopping. Stephan pleaded and begged to look for a costume a full three weeks before his first trip trick-or-treating. Stephan raced up and down the aisles looking for a mask. He wanted his face to be hidden when people gave him candy, and he was fascinated by the idea of people not knowing who he was. As Stephan raced ahead and around the corner, his mom put a clown mask on and pulled a rainbow jumpsuit over her clothes, to surprise him a little. Stephan raced back down the aisle, a Spiderman mask in hand, and he shrieked when he saw the killer clown, stopping and looking all over for his mom. She immediately pulled the mask off and went to comfort him. And he looked past her, mouth open. “Mom!” he screamed. “Mom!”

It sent a shock through her when she realized that he could not recognize her – she felt like she was still wearing a mask she couldn’t take off. She reached out to hold him, and he shrieked. She grabbed him and held him tight and said, “It’s me, I’m here.” And his eyes calmed and focused in on her for the first time since she took the mask off. “Let’s go home,” she said.

She took him to see doctors: The family physician, eye doctors, ear doctors, and neurologists. He was put through a battery of tests: Vision tests, pattern memory recall, word memory recall, sensory exams, motor exams, cranial nerve exams, and even an MRI. Finally, he was diagnosed with face blindness.

“Congenital prosopagnosia,” the neurologist said. “A part of Stephan’s brain, the fusiform face area, isn’t working properly.” He pointed to an area of a model brain that stood on his desk, the back left. “What it means is Stephan can’t recognize faces.”

His mom said, “What do you mean, not even mine?”

And the doctor didn’t answer, because who can tell a mother that? He instead offered her some good news: “Though this disorder is associated with impaired memory, Stephan’s memory appears to be fine, above average even.”

As they walked to the car, he knew that something had happened because she held his hand tightly. His child’s mind didn’t know what it was but whatever it was deserved ice cream – he recognized the familiar route traditionally reserved for rare occasions like birthdays or after receiving painful injections. He got his favorite cone, cookie dough, and she got a cookie dough cone too, even though she preferred chocolate, because she wanted to share something with her son. They sat next to each other as they licked the dripping cones, and she squeezed his hand.

“You can’t recognize people by their faces,” she told him.

“What does that mean?” He said. He didn’t stop licking the cone.

“It means you’ll have some trouble. This will give you some trouble. But it’s also a wonderful thing. Because you can recognize people in other ways, how they walk, how they talk, and what they do. You can recognize people by their hearts, and that’s the best.”

They were quiet for a minute. Stephan asked, “What do you mean, trouble?”

She squeezed his hand again. “It will be a little hard. It’ll be hard. But I’ll be there, always. And we can come up with strategies, ways to make it easier.”

And they did.

When Stephan complained about how people didn’t always wear the same clothes, she told him to look for things that didn’t change, like freckles, scars, or birthmarks. She also told him to focus on the voice, to learn the voice, to tie the voice to the name like other people tie the face to the name. So he developed a smart ear that could dissect people’s words not just for meaning, but also for identity and emotional intention.

When Stephan told her how embarrassing it was to incorrectly guess someone’s name, she suggested he always let the other person talk first, to give his ear a chance to corroborate his initial guess. It was how he came to develop a deferential attitude, a defining characteristic. People thought of him as naturally polite and respectful. It was beyond anyone to notice what was really going on.

And she gave him pep talks, like the one she was giving him now. When he decided in fourth grade that he liked a girl in his class, he waited for her at recess by her usual water fountain, prepared speech in head and flowers in hand. He was looking for Sarah, a girl a little shorter than him, with brown hair, who had been wearing a blue dress before recess. When a girl like that came to the water fountain, he was sure it was her. And nerves got the better of him, so he broke habit and spoke first. He told her how much he liked the way she giggled and how much she seemed to know about history, his favorite subject. He told her he’d love to see her after school someday, to walk over to the Jamba Juice around the corner to get a smoothie. He offered her the flowers and saw how red her cheeks were.

“I’m so flattered, Stephan. But I think you’re looking for Sarah. I’m Julia.”

He apologized over and over again, and when he eventually asked her about the dress, she said that Sarah had borrowed it at a sleepover and she asked for it back, so Sarah changed into her gym clothes. Stephan stayed home from school until he talked to his mom.

“How will any girl like me if I can’t even recognize her?” he asked.

“That was a really nice thing you were trying to do, honey. No one can blame you for that. And if Sarah can’t look past that mistake, then you’re too good for her.” She saw that his head was still down, so she added, “That would be like her looking only at your face and not at your heart.”

So with the incident with the Congressman, when Stephan said, “I don’t think politics will work out for me. Politicians need to recognize faces,” his mom knew how to cheer him up.

The next day, he went back to the campaign headquarters.

-------------

Want to keep reading? Here's Part 4!