'The key is finding a new path': Naperville woman takes on late husband's documentary project

Sarah Ferguson Potter's lone tattoo, a lotus flower, rests peacefully on the inside of her left arm.

It's a constant reminder that, like the flower itself, beauty can emerge from the muddiest waters once it reaches the light.

The Naperville resident fell into her own dark depths in July 2020 when her husband died unexpectedly after complications from a severe bout with pancreatitis. Scott was only 36 years old and left behind Sarah and two young children.

Scott was a filmmaker and artist who had been working on a documentary to raise awareness about acute flaccid myelitis or AFM, a rare neurological disease that causes muscle weakness and sometimes paralysis. That, too, seemingly was left behind.

But after her journey to find the light, Sarah Potter has taken up the project as a tribute to Scott's devotion and inspiration - and the legacy he left behind for her and their children Logan, 7, and Ellie, 3.

<h3 class="breakHead">Taking the leap</h3>

A speech pathologist for 15 years, Potter knew little about filmmaking when she made the leap of quitting her job in Indian Prairie Unit District 204 at the end of last school year to commit to a new career.

One of the first things she did was find a fitting name for the documentary. It's now called "When the Lotus Blooms" and will focus on AFM in addition to Potter's exploration of her own personal loss.

"I reprioritized how I want to be spending my time," said Potter, 40. "I needed to be doing something that was more meaningful and enjoyable for me, but also something that would give me flexibility to be there for my kids.

"The key is finding a new path," she said. "You don't have to be happy about how you got there. But to go forward, you have to find a way that is going to be meaningful to you."

Potter began a Kickstarter campaign to fund "When the Lotus Blooms" with information that's also found at whenthelotusblooms.com. She must raise the entire $100,000 goal by March 19 or the contributed money is returned.

More than $21,000 has been raised since the campaign started on Feb. 15. Sponsors will add $10,000 if 200 backers join in the next week, making the next handful of days critical.

"I'm going to finish it in whatever way I can," she said. "Once we get this Kickstarter, we hope to get some grants and sponsorships, and really just use those resources to make a distribution-worthy film that could win at film festivals and get picked up by a streaming service."

<h3 class="breakHead">A rebirth</h3>

The months after Scott's death were about mere survival for Sarah. She returned to work in the fall but struggled to cope with grief while also figuring out how to be a speech pathologist during remote learning in the middle of a pandemic.

Everything changed over Thanksgiving weekend in 2020. Some people who worked with Scott on the documentary encouraged Potter to travel to Hawaii to participate in a different production. She accepted the offer despite initial doubts.

"I brushed it off at first, but it gave me a chance to see what Scott's world was like," Potter said. "It was an incredible experience, and on top of that they followed me with a camera and put together this amazing video about why I was there and why this movie needs to be done."

Perhaps it was the tranquility of the environment, but she took like a fish to water and developed a love of filmmaking. She has since worked on several productions throughout the country.

"I've actually had to turn down work because I've been so busy," she said. "It's really been great for me."

Scott had traveled to California to film an interview with a family dealing with AFM, but beyond some editing he had done, most of what remains of the documentary is a list of unfinished projects written on a whiteboard in their house.

Right now, she and her team are narrowing the focus of the story, but they hope to resume filming in the summer.

Between now and then, she may get another tattoo.

This one would be of a small ocean wave to commemorate Hawaii and, like the lotus, her rebirth.

"Grief is still kind of a taboo subject," she said. "It can be isolating for people to go through medical issues or the death of a loved one.

"We really want to create a space for people to have a discussion and to give visibility to those going through it."