Better Than Gold, Evergreen
There’s a story I wish I could have told my friend before she died.
It’s about a golden Buddha.
During a time of war, a family—fearing for their lives and their sacred treasures—covered their golden Buddha statue in mud to hide it from invading soldiers. They wanted to protect what was precious, so they cloaked it in something plain, unassuming, forgettable. It worked. The soldiers passed by. The statue was saved. But time did what time does. The war ended. The family changed. Generations moved on, and the memory of the gold beneath the mud faded.
Then, one day, years later, the mud cracked.
And there it was—gleaming, brilliant, unchanged. The gold had been there all along.
I wish I could have told her that story.
I wish I could have looked her in the eyes and said, “You are the gold underneath. The mud was never you—it was the conditioning, the armor, the silence, the fear, the things the world told you to be.”
She was better than gold.
She was evergreen.
Gold is beautiful, yes. But evergreen is alive. Evergreen grows through winters. It survives seasons. It stands tall when everything else falls away. She was like that—resilient, deep-rooted, quietly radiant.
I saw how life put mud on her. Expectations. Pain. History.
If I had told her this story, maybe she would’ve remembered her own gold. Maybe she would’ve seen how rare she was. Maybe not. But I still carry this story now, for her, and maybe for you reading this.
The world covers us in mud. But we are not the mud.
You are the gold underneath.
You are better than gold.
You are evergreen.
I miss you, friend. I hope somewhere, somehow, you’ve brushed off the last of the mud and remembered who you really are.
Always shining. Always growing. Always evergreen.
