Is there a more loaded word in the English dictionary? Good and bad this is a powerful word.
I have an amazingly talented friend who is a professional photographer and Potential is the one word I use to describe her work. Then I have to explain. It's not that I think she has the potential to be a good photographer, she already is one. It's not that I think she has the potential to do great things, she already is doing them. It's that her pictures for me always seem to be about the Potential. The what happens next. Now part of that is her main bread and butter is kids and weddings as is for most photographers and those two subjects are all about potential, but her work always is about more than just the subject, it's about the subject and the world around them! Her passion is working with animals and she has a series of shots with a dog on the beach where I can hear the ocean and I can feel the ball in my hand as I am about to throw it for that waiting pooch! Potential...
Then there is the flip side, the pressure that Potential brings with it. My mother was pregnant eight times. She had one miscarriage, two of my sisters died shortly after birth, one brother was fatally hit by a truck when he was very young. That left my two older brothers, my sister and I. Due to the amount of pregnancies and the size of her babies after my brother Jeff was born (he was #6) the doctors told my mother no more babies. She said okay. And a year and half later my sister was born. The doctors said, seriously, no more babies. You will die or the child will die. No more. And she said okay. So just over 6 years later when she found she was pregnant with me the doctors were not happy. I believe there was also a letter written to the condom manufacturer letting them know of their defective product and that at the very least a refund should be coming forthwith.
They told her, do you think we were kidding? You will die if you carry this child to term. The baby will most likely not survive and if for some reason it does it will most likely be retarded. Now, the only thing I can figure out here is this is before genetic testing and doctors were just starting to figure out the correlation between Down Syndrome and age of the birth mother, but I still think it was a pretty bold statement for him to make. It has, of course, made my brothers and sister very happy through the years to repeat this little bit of medical fact at any opportunity.
Anyway, my parents are extremely religious people and for them there was no other option than to carry the child to term and hope for the best. I was almost a month late. So at almost 10 months pregnant my mother and father made their way to St. Joseph's in Albuquerque. My parents are not Catholic but still felt at that point the nuns were going to be of more use than the doctors. After a very rough delivery where I tried my hardest to kill my mother on the way out we both survived. Beat up for me. Lots of blood loss for her. But mother and baby recovered just fine.
But this is where the story of my life took hold. For as long as I can remember my mother would tell me, "God has very special plans for you." Or "You wouldn't be here if God didn't have great things you needed to do." Do you know the pressure that puts on a child? GOD wants me to do great things and all I want is to have an ice cream cone. Potential. It was like a weight to carry around. Eventually I got over it. I decided my potential was just that, mine. Just like everyone else's. And I put it mostly away.
Then I became a parent. I see this kid in front of me that is on his way to being an exceptional man and I see POTENTIAL! He told me yesterday after a random talk, "You really have big plans for me don't you?" I realized I was being my parents all over. I had to back away from the ledge and remind him that I see all of the great things he can accomplish, if he so chooses, and that yes, I fully believe he can do anything, but mostly I just want him to be happy. However that manifests itself. And that is the truth. If I accomplish nothing else in life if I can raise a kid that grows up to be a content good man, then my Potential is fully realized and I am happy.
This year my incredibly talented friend will take my incredible son's Senior pictures. Potential...meet Potential. I cannot wait to see the results!
Her website is http://www.greenchairstudio.com/ because I know you all want to see that dog!
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