Imagine that someone you love has died, but you get to see them again. You get to see them laugh, smile, talk to you - all from behind the exact same face.
That's the position Rebekah Aversano found herself in during a 60 Minutes story to be aired this Sunday when she met Richard Norris.
"Do you mind if I touch it?," Mrs Aversano asks. "No, not at all," he responds.
After gasping she says: "This is the face I grew up with".
Her brother, Joshua, died after he was hit by a car crossing the road three years ago, aged 21. But Mr Norris has his face after the family agreed for it to be donated in a world-first operation in 2012.
Mr Norris accidentally blew half his face off with a shotgun in 1997 and lost his nose, jaw, teeth and most of his tongue.
There was flesh, bone and blood on all four walls of his bedroom.
He lived as a recluse in his Virginia home, only venturing outside to go shopping at night.
Mr Norris, a civilian, was chosen as the first transplant candidate after meeting Eduardo Rodriguez, a dentist and surgeon at University of Maryland Medical Centre, in 2005.
In 2012, Mr Norris underwent the most extensive face-transplant operation ever performed.
It was a 36-hour procedure involving 150 doctors and nurses at the University of Maryland Medical Centre.
The stakes were high with only a 50 per cent chance of survival.
One week later, he is able to shave his face and brush his teeth.The transplant included tissue from the neck to the scalp, as well as the upper and lower jaw, teeth and a section of the tongue.
The operation came just seven years after the first successful partial face transplant was carried out on Isabelle Dinoire, from France, who lost her nose, lips and chin after being attacked by her pet labrador.
Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Centre believe the procedure carried out on Mr Norris could have far-reaching consequences for the many others who have suffered facial disfigurement, including soldiers injured in conflict.
Two years after the procedure took place, Mr Norris told GQ magazine he was recovering well, although he will have to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of his life, and there is a risk that his body could reject the new face at any time.
"Every day," he said, "I wake up with that fear: Is this the day? The day I'm going to go into a state of rejection that is going to be so bad that the doctors can't change it?"
But for now he is more than happy to show the world his face, and to be the pioneer of a treatment that could change the lives of many others. Above all, he is happy to have something approaching a normal life again.
"When I look in the mirror," he told GQ, "I see Richard Norris."
- with The Washington Post and Telegraph, London
