missile mistake

Our island had a bit of a scare this morning... an emergency notification was sent to many people's phones (including Todd's) saying that a ballistic missile was en route to Hawaii, this was not a drill, and that we should seek immediate shelter.  The information that we've received in the past indicated that, in a situation like this, we would really only have 12-13 minutes from the moment of the notification to the moment of impact.  So, for lack of a better plan, I started closing all the windows, Todd went in to go put on clean underwear (I still don't understand why that was his priority), my mom (Gordy's Nana) called and we told each other we loved each other, and then we sat and waited.  While we waited, we did our best to search the internet for any news update on what was happening.  

Finally, after about 20+ minutes, my mom called to let us know that she had gotten a news update that the alert was a mistake.  Soon, our government officials issued a statement that the notification had, in fact, been sent accidentally.  Relief and a few tears overtook us all.  

Today was the first time in my life that I feared for my life and my family's life.  After I closed all of the windows and told my mom that I loved her, I looked down at this beautiful little face smiling at me and thought how sorry I was that I had brought him into such a horrible world.  I felt helpless and unable to protect him.  

Now that we've had some time to recuperate from thinking that we may die, I think it's important to document my thoughts.  So here they are:

(1)  I experienced this kind of fear for 30 minutes of one day and it was horrible.  There are people all over the world who live this kind of fear every day of their lives.  Many of those people have fled their homes and countries to try to relocate to a place where they don't have to feel like that anymore - to try to give their kids a better and more certain future.  How can anyone begrudge them this?  We (and by we I mean American people) should  reach out and help these people.  Help them to enjoy the kind of life that most Americans enjoy where the most dangerous thing we encounter each day are cars.  Instead of building walls and creating travel bans, we should open our eyes and see the people who are looking for help - looking for a safe place to raise their family.  

(2)  Diplomacy is better than name calling.  But, as long as we are name calling... I'm even more disgusted with the orange-skinned, sexist, racist, liar who is "leading" our country. He has engaged in a pissing war with with a reckless lunatic and they are both playing with innocent people's lives.  I want to make a point that we are all in this situation because of the uneducated white morons in so many "shit-hole" states who voted for such a sleazy inept idiot back on November 8th of 2016.  Up until now, our little island in the pacific had sirens and emergency notifications for things like flooding and tsunamis.  Now, we have them for ballistic missiles and nuclear bombs.

Really, I think that Americans take life for granted.  We forget how fragile it really is and we should be more compassionate to people who are not as lucky as we are to have been born in such a great country.  We should fight fire with water and not more fire.  And, we should remember that that all humans are people - regardless of race, birth place, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, etc.  Let's love each other.