“You Have What I Can’t Teach You.”

The crackling raw energy of words so charged with affirmation they changed a life. My life.

“You have what I can’t teach you.”

Words Doug said to me when I rejected his offer to purchase me a dSLR camera.

“You can see the shot, that I can’t teach you.”

The power of words. The power to build up, the power tear down. Words can bring life, or death. Words can be the breath that fans a small flicker of hope into a warm fire, or they can be the cruel wind that snuffs the tiny flame.

“I will help you.”

And he did. My camera arrived and I was afraid to open the box. A tutorial DVD set arrived, those I opened. The quiet man with few words then sat with me three times through each disc as I sat with my new camera in my lap trying to absorb the lessons. “Stop, go back, repeat, what did he mean? Can we watch it again?”

The first few pictures. My breath caught, color. The world had color. The world had beauty, and edges, and depth, and was vibrant with life.

Every evening the patient soul sat through my pictures from the day. Sometimes hundreds of pictures. Questions started to include file management, directories, all of a sudden I needed bigger drives and more disk space.

A beautiful, piercingly clear monitor appears on my desk, a gift from my surviving son. He too is a mentor, a creative spirit, he has a brilliant eye for composition and light.

Mentoring. Investing. Nurturing. Gifts and talent are raw material, they need someone willing to invest in you. Not for return, not for exchange, but unconditional investment because you are you.

And the child gone too soon? My love for him is poured out through my camera. His sweetness exists in the way the sun lights up a dahlia petal, his determination in the proud carriage of a wild horse. The dance of motherhood continues in the doe nuzzling her tiny fawn and in the mare whose eyes shine with liquid fire as they rest on her foal.

“You have what I can’t teach you.”

A life changed.