The face remembered from childhood can remain present inside features that have changed.

Faces change without being replaced. Something in the arrangement around the eyes, or a particular way of laughing, survives fifty years of alteration, which is why a person you knew as a child can be recognisable in a second despite everything being different. Recognition is not really about features, it is about pattern. That is also why watching a parent age can feel like two images sitting inside one frame.

If you are seeing someone after a long gap, look for what has stayed rather than cataloguing what has gone. Saying you would have known them anywhere is worth more than it sounds.