Evolve
The Narrative
Who was she before beauty began to blossom from her soul?
This is Randi, the empress of evolution.
By her early fifties, she’d never left the small town in Florida’s panhandle, except for her Key West honeymoon. She married her highschool sweetheart, who became the local weatherman. Randi hosted a morning talk show. They were in love and had fun together. They were local celebrities who loved entertaining—threw the best parties. Lavish, by small town standards.
Her husband passed suddenly—fell to the ground while mowing the lawn on a crisp, winter morning… a heart attack. Too distraught to stay in the home they built together, Randi sold it and moved in with her mother, but not for long. A lifelong smoker, her mother was infected with Covid and her lungs couldn't handle the stress. Her mother passed on the same day that her husband had, one year later.
Grief-stricken, Randi left her talk show. With reminders of her late-husband and her mother at every turn, she ventured to a small island in the tropics where she thought she’d find solace—in a modest bottom floor apartment facing the sea. Small hibiscus trees lined the sandy yard. The groundsman, a handsome island boi in his mid-twenties, romanced her to the point of devastation. Her grief became his lottery ticket. What began as sentimental conversation over morning cups of coffee as he raked the sand turned into his window of opportunity to reap the benefits of a widow, too scared to allow herself to grieve.
He listened well—took notes. He seduced her—used her pain against her. She and her husband loved to entertain. They had fun together. Her island boi showed her a new kind of fun—introduced her to a kind of revelry that would strip the pain away: moonlit nights, dancing beneath the stars, high on cocaine, tequila to wash it all away.
Before long, Randi had signed her life away to the young island boi. Her savings dwindled as her cost of living rose. A golf cart purchase… then the boat. “We’ll make money off of tours,” he promised her. “This is a great investment. Let’s buy a house, and since you’re not a citizen, we’ll just put the titles in my name.”
Her judgment, stunted in a dissolute fog.
Until one night, an impression of the moon illuminated through a blanket of clouds and the tide rose fast.
It was the beginning of a weather phenomenon that only her late husband could explain to her and she longed to be by his side, once again.
She took her last line of cocaine, followed by a shot of tequila and walked into the midnight water and kept walking and walking until her feet couldn’t touch the seafloor and the waves rose over her head and she swam forward, toward the reef until her body went numb. Weightless, her body bobbed up and down, motionless—waiting for the next wave to take her under and as it began to crest she took a deep breath, looked toward the sky and pleaded to the heavens for her soul to finally “evolve.”
…and in a new form, in a new light, she was given an opportunity to exist within a different set of rules.
Evolution is inevitable—
Mind, body, and soul—
We can evolve through love, or let fear stunt our growth.
From bud to blossom
the hibiscus flower doesn’t question her journey.
She hangs languidly under the tropical sun and lets nature take her course.
She doesn’t fret how many petals she’ll have,
or if one of them becomes an iguana’s snack
or gets steeped in your cup of tea—
because she was born with purpose
from the heart of the Divine
and every stage of her journey blesses us with pure beauty—
and we’re all bright, fragrant, hibiscus flowers
on our own journey toward Divine blossom.
Evolve through love.