The Face Behind the Camera

It started with a simple “Honey, smile.”

I didn’t ask for what followed. Didn’t ask for the responsibility, the power, and at times, the burden.

By uttering those two words, I unknowingly volunteered for a position that had no concrete description and was seldom given the credit and appreciation it deserved. I became a librarian of sorts. A protector of records and faces and events. Defender of jumbled files that a stranger could find but not comprehend, as the only person who knew how to navigate them was the same one who created them. And every year my digital maze grew older and more plentiful.

Many visitors walked through our home and admired my work but did not know that I was the one who made it all happen. They only saw the faces that stared back at them from behind quarter-inch black frames - most smiling, some silly, but all rich with joy. “What wonderful pictures,” they said. We always gave the conditioned response of gratitude, even though we knew their feelings toward the faces were largely indifferent. But that was okay. They were more for us than anyone else.

In the years that came and went, the faces that hung on the walls grew nearly unrecognizable, as if time had stolen them and replaced them with new, sharper, foreign profiles. Though the frames stayed. They were timeless. After all, it was in my job description to pick them out and, in my humble opinion, I did a pretty great job.

When our first face - the tall one with the crooked smile - moved away, we cried. Not in front of him. We didn’t want to scare him… or make him think we were crazy. But we had a good go at it after he left. That night, I went back into my records, through the maze, twisting and turning until I found his file. I looked through it for hours. I found tongues sticking out, eyes crossed, and some tears, but only from many years ago.

And that’s when I discovered the true burden of my position.

Along with his face I found many others. Smiling ones, silly ones, serious ones, and laughing ones. Familiar faces. Strange faces. Faces that hadn’t shown their faces in years. I saw faces that stared at each other with love and passion. I saw faces that stared back at me with elation. I saw almost every face imaginable, and with each one came a memory, and with each memory came emotion, and with each emotion came warmth. I looked through these faces, searching for one - the one people saw when they smiled back at me. The one that made smiles light up when they heard, “Honey, smile.”

It was not there.

I made an effort to diffuse my responsibilities after that. It was still my job, but every once in a while it was okay to make it someone else’s. I was able to reach a healthy balance until our second face - the thicker one with the shaggy blonde hair - moved away. Looking through my maze after that wasn’t as painful. Although this face wasn’t moving as far away, and I knew I’d have more chances to capture it. Still, I looked, and remembered, and felt. But I saw that face I had been longing for the last time. And it made me feel good, but also strange - as if the face didn’t quite belong in the maze. I knew it did, but its presence felt almost forced, artificially inserted, even. The warmth that had found me so easily the last time eluded me now, and I felt it was undeservedly so. But perhaps it was a sign that I had disregarded my responsibility - not taken it seriously enough. It was my own gut telling me that I had grown reckless and selfish, and the face I had inserted into my records this time around needed to go back to its original place and not stick itself where it didn’t belong.

And then our last face - the playful one with curly hair - moved out. Those were the only two things about it that remained intact. When she arrived, she was plump, her nose was round, and her eyes shone bright blue. When she left, she was thinner. Her nose had elongated over time, though it still showed hints of bulge around the nostrils. And green specks that twinkled in the sunlight had found their way into her gaze. But as she turned away from the open front door to give me one last nervous hug, her curls still blinded me, flowed over my shoulders, and gently tickled my arms like feathers. When she let go, she smiled and stuck her tongue out at me - the same playful thing that had snuck its way in hundreds, maybe thousands of digital records - turned, and left.

The echoes of the door reuniting with its latches bled into silence. I looked at the first face I had ever captured - the one that had smiled at me before anyone else - and smiled with my mouth. Though the rest of my face told a different story.

“Honey, it’s okay,” the face said. “We did it. We should feel proud.”

I nodded, gave her a hug, and turned toward our room.

There I reentered my maze one final time. I looked at the playful face that had grown mature over time but never serious, and I looked at the other faces that had become more playful in her presence. I saw how they watched her as she stared at me, tongue sticking out and blue-green eyes darting in every direction. I looked at all of the faces that I would now be seeing less of, and I still saw mere glimpses of the face that I used to long to see. But this time the warmth that had come to me the first time but evaded me the second found me again. It started as a pang in my chest. Then it spread upwards to my neck and head. Soon, I was filled with it.

I had completed my responsibilities. Filled my positional duties. The digital maze of files and faces that had been under construction for twenty-five years was done, as there were no more turns to make. No more pathways to build. It was all there, at my touch whenever I needed or wanted to revisit the faces that had grown older and wiser as they went further into that maze. I layed down satisfied with the job I had done in my accidental position. In my efforts, I had captured faces. But not just any faces - the most important faces in the world. I had given them longevity. I had ingrained them in history so they could never be forgotten. In my work, I built digital statues, and these statues would stand the test of time and would make these faces immortal in the eyes of their loved ones. All the faces that mattered would be remembered forever.

Except for one.

And as that face drifted off to sleep, I remembered my burden. My sacrifice. I did what I had to do to cement all the other faces that mattered. In a way, it was a crushing feeling to be forgotten, to know that one face had to die so that the others could live.

I can only hope that the other faces will remember me and the sacrifice I made for the gift of their permanent memory. When I provide them with the map to navigate through my virtual maze, I know that they will not forget the face that hid in the shadows so that theirs could shine. The face that will forever remain missing.

My face.

The face behind the camera.