By Suraj Narine
Hope, like love, always manages to find us, even at the depths of our despair. Granted, it takes a while, but it always gets there. It can come even from the unlikeliest of sources. You just have to pay attention.
For 21-year-old, Floretta Spooner, hope is everything. Though she faced turmoils in life and witnessed the underbelly of this world, she emerged an empress.
While Floretta now speaks glowingly about hope, love and faith, her sentiments are not quite as they were prior to the events that were sparked on the night of August 18, 2019.
TRAGEDY
Tragedy struck as a teenage Floretta was heading home in a car in the wee hours of the morning with some friends along the East Coast Demerara (ECD) highway. The vehicle was involved in a devastating crash. It happened as she slept in the backseat. Floretta woke up in the hospital three months later but it felt like the next morning as she grappled with the pain of her incident. As she looked around, she wondered where she was, and for a brief moment, who she was. 
Soon, the images started to return, a little fuzzy at first, but even with the full picture in focus, it still felt like a dream. At least, she wanted it to be. Her reality was gloomier. Floretta had just emerged from a three-week coma. She had suffered severe brain and nerve damage with extensive trauma to the left side of her body. She was later declared partially paralysed.
“I couldn’t believe it. It was like I was watching a movie. The hurtful part is I couldn’t remember a thing. I suffered memory loss and when some of the memories started to return, I was so disappointed in the life I lived…All those time I wasted behind things that didn’t matter: the partying and how far I drifted from my faith.”
Floretta, who hails from Coldingen, ECD, spent the next few months literally leaning on her loved ones and the walls around her home. Her trips to therapy were challenging and the unoptimistic smiles even from those closest to her dimmed whatever hope she had. Time had stopped for her, but the world moved on with intense rapidity. Even some of her friends, who were there with her in the beginning, began to fade away. Floretta believed that they pitied her and that staying away was some sort of kindness.
“I never saw back many of my ride-or-dies, the ones I thought mattered. Some stayed, but they just drifted away, I guess. It did bother me, and I felt like everyone had abandoned me. I felt like a victim, but I got to see who my real friends were…Sadly, it had to take a tragedy for me to see that,” Floretta scoffed.
BREAKING POINT
She later sank into a state of depression. According to her, the world was not the same anymore. For weeks she limped about her surroundings with her left shoulder always against a wall to keep her from losing balance and falling over. She said that those who stuck around and cared for her were beginning to lose hope, time and money. She no longer wanted to feel like a burden, so she started to push herself.
“There was also a lot of pressure. I mean, I was broke. I couldn’t afford to even get to therapy sessions, and I wanted to contribute to my family as well because they were there for me. I wanted to get a job and get back on my feet but my body wasn’t willing. So, I became depressed because I felt helpless,” she said.
After weeks of her “own therapy”, she was finally ready to face the world. It was now a mere three months after she woke from her coma. Floretta was reintroduced to a world she no longer recognised. People looked at her differently and the corporate world was nothing but cold and unwelcoming.
“I walked a bit off-balanced and the brain damage affects how I talk, so, they looked at me differently. Sometimes people are not kind. They would say things to me. Things like I’m a liability to their company and all of that. Sometimes it got to me and I just got back into bad habits and I got depressed.”
Floretta soon resorted to drugs and alcohol, hoping to find anything to quell the pain.
“I started drinking and doing drugs. I started cutting myself, just to take my mind off this emotional and physical pain. It was a difficult time for me. I moved around from job to job and sometimes people would pretend to be kind and they would assist me to move around but what they wanted in return, I couldn’t give. Sometimes people in high positions would ask me for sexual favours because they helped me, and when I refused, they would call me nasty names. It was my breaking point. I wanted to die. It was horrible.” she said.
THE LIGHT
In August 2021, almost two years after the crash, Floretta said that she decided to call it quits, but the universe would not let her.
“I saw this bright light in my room. It was so bright and it made me feel like I had no worries and no pain. I don’t know what it was, I just felt hope. I saw myself on a stage wearing heels and a crown. It was like I was a Queen of something. It was crazy at first because I couldn’t wear heels and I still couldn’t walk properly. I told some of the people close to me about what I saw and they said brain damage was affecting me and that I was losing my mind. Not a soul believed me and I even started to doubt what I saw,” she said.
Floretta said that the image of her as a queen was branded into the back of her mind. She thought that the universe was teasing her with something she could not have. In her quest to figure out what she saw, Floretta would soon abandon her “wayward” ways and immersed herself in prayer and fasting.
“I tried to forget about it but like I was still obsessed with what I saw. I thought it was one of those signs that people talk about. So, I pray day and night and I asked God to show me the way. I began putting my trust in him. I opened my heart to him and he started to open doors for me. I quit drinking and smoking and the cuttings. I started to see life differently. I no longer saw myself as a victim but as a victor. I put on those heels and I walked,” she said.
Even that road before Floretta was not paved with roses. She remembers reaching out to people, inquiring about pageantry and hoping to get a place in the industry, only to be met with opposition.
“People looked at me as this tiny girl with a weird walk and talk and said that there was no place for me in the industry. Someone close to me told me that I was wasting my time, but to me, it felt right, you know. I had a purpose and so much hope; so much hope that whenever I opened my mouth to speak, things would come my way.”
EMPRESS ON THE MOVE
Floretta now holds the title of Miss Empress Guyana. 
“I put on those heels and I took to the stage. Whatever I saw in that light, it happened. I’m living it now. Miss Empress Guyana is hosted by the Elite Pageant Company and it’s about empowerment and we focus mainly on humanitarian work. Helping the homeless and inspiring those who are faced with the same challenges I faced, is what I am passionate about. I just want to give others hope and to share with me the glory of God,” she said.
The cloud of sordid events has now given way to a series of prolonged happiness. Through her involvement in pageantry, Floretta began looking at natural ways to spruce up her appearance. She began merging herbs to make creams and lotions, which she offered to a few people. Their response was overwhelming. Not long after, Floretta launched “Natural Beauty Products”. 
She now spends her time at home, foraging for herbs and creating natural beauty creams and scents.
Her involvement in pageantry also brought a new sense of self-worth. Floretta said that she started to take better care of herself. She began eating healthy and even started working out regularly. She said that the colours of the world have returned and while some days are more difficult than others, HOPE is ever-present. 
“Without hope, I don’t think I could have made it. Three weeks in a coma, 74 saline bags, brain damaged, paralysed, heartbroken, abandoned, betrayed, body-shamed, drug-addicted and scorned, and yet I survived. The glory only belongs to God. He brought me back. I am now determined to have everything that was promised to me,” she said.
