“Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.” These were the words that came across as an emergency alert on every cellphone in Hawaii on January 13th around 8:07am.
While this message proved to be a user error that happened in a shift change during an internal drill at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, there were many who thought it was real for a short time period and began to prepare for the worst. By the time I caught wind of this news headline, this major mistake was well over with, but it still left me thinking.
What would I do, if this ever happened to me and the warning I received on my mobile phone wasn’t a mistake?
In today’s day and age where war seems like a constant threat, especially between North Korea and the United States, I’ve often asked myself this very question. While I certainly hope I never have to face something like this in actuality, I’m not afraid to die.
Look, I’m a firm believer that when it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go and there’s nothing I can to avoid that. I tend to believe that each of us have a set expiration date on God’s calendar and that if our time is up, it’s up and there’s nothing that can be done to change that. But if it’s not our time, then nothing we can do will change that either.
The main reason why I have this attitude is because of my experience with death so far in this life. I’ve witnessed people that should have died from multiple suicide attempts, but were never successful. I’ve known of others who did die from suicide on their very first attempt, where others it took countless attempts. Then there’s those I’ve known who’ve been on drugs for years and never died from an overdose and those who got high for the first time and died instantly because of it. There’s even those I’ve known who’ve died tragically from things so bizarre and those who’ve lived through them as well that should have taken their lives. And so on and so forth. Death seems to have its own expiration date for each of us where there’s never any rhyme or reason for what takes one’s life and what doesn’t.
Nevertheless, I say all this because if I was going to be in the vicinity of where a ballistic missile was about to explode and it was my time to go, then I fully believe there’s nothing I can really do to change that. Thus, running around and screaming, crying and looking for some type of shelter to save me most likely wouldn’t happen. Instead, I’d attempt to call my sister and tell her I love her and then embrace my partner one last time. Yet, in the same breath, if I was meant to survive a tragedy like a ballistic missile landing near me, then I also fully believe that God would guide me and protect me somehow through it all.
Regardless, I still hope I don’t ever end up seeing a message come across my phone, like the one Hawaiians saw just over a week ago. But if one like that somehow ever does, I truly do at least have that much acceptance in my life that if it’s my time to go, then there’s nothing I can do about it and I’m really ok with that, just as much as I’m really ok with living through it too, if that was what was meant to be instead…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
