Missiles and Messages

Photo credit: Anne Taintor, Inc.

This story is brought to you today with Julia’s permission.

Funny how things get brought back to the forefront of our brains at just the right moment. As a storyteller, I know when to grab that current and run with it because storytelling is basically my favorite thing in life aside from my family and friends. This morning, I noticed a message on Facebook from Julia, a dear friend from high school. Julia was the girl we all secretly wanted to be back in those mid 90s days. She wore combat boots, capes, quirky glasses, etc. She was also just plain old nice, still is. She eventually became our senior class president, proving that we did all truly want to be her. I think we all adored and admired what she represented—freedom to be exactly who you are, independent of what anyone thinks, combined with the ability to be an excellent human.

25 years have now passed since we graduated high school and many of us stay in touch through the magic of Facebook. If Facebook didn’t exist, I imagine that people like Julia and I would have limited contact with one another despite living in neighboring towns (the very same towns we grew up in). Because of social media, I know things like she regularly cuts her own hair around Halloween, usually to suit a costume that she has probably been planning to wear for months. Ask her about the time she dressed as Ash Ketchum from Pokemon or Eleven from Stranger Things. She often posts things like ‘We’re going to Whitman Park today, who wants to join?’ or ‘A friend had a house fire and needs things, who can help?’ She genuinely wants to connect with and help any and all humans. When you bump into her anywhere, she’s easy to talk to, down to earth, and friendly. If I sent her a message right now and said “I need size 5 cleats”, she would go look in her closets and if she didn’t find some, she’d point me in the direction of someone who might. That’s a rare quality in a person and something we could all aspire to be. In fact, she is the poster woman for what Mark Zuckerberg says he wants Facebook to be all about while he rakes in billions from nefarious users who try to sway political elections from a basement in Moscow. I digress.

This morning, I opened a message from Julia that shared a podcast called “This is Not a Drill” (that is a hyperlink if you want to listen to it - it’s about 30 minutes long). She said that she hesitated to share it with me as she was concerned it might trigger some tough memories but she sent it anyway because she knew about my experiences on Kaua’i, particularly about the time my family woke up to an emergency alert on our phones: “Inbound ballistic missile. Seek shelter immediately. This is not a drill.” I played the podcast and cried a little as I listened to a woman recite a Hawaiian chant that she had recited from her one man canoe that morning as she looked back at the mountains behind her from the peace of the Pacific waters. It was a chant that asked the gods to protect her and her islands. The thing that got me was when she said that she is not supposed to outlive her land and that if her islands were going to be destroyed, she wanted to be destroyed with them. That visceral connection between human and earth is something that really struck me on Kaua’i and, ultimately, led me to crawl back to to the woods of Massachusetts. My body was not connected to that land and when that warning came in, I realized just how far I was from the land where I was supposed to be. Five months later, I moved back and only regret it during the month of March when all I want is to feel the warmth of the sun again.

I am so thankful for Julia this morning. We chatted on messenger and covered topics like the significance of that missile threat in my life, the struggles of maintaining our own emotions in front of our kids, our daughters’ fashion sense and their penchant for clothes two sizes too small, her fashion sense and clothing choices in high school, dresses she’s considering for an LA wedding, and our mutual friend’s romper tales which I did not divulge but may have tipped her off to something (that mutual friend might want to kill me for that but she can never not love me). Julia reminded me today of what it means to be not just a good but an excellent human. Although she knew this would be a painful memory for me, she shared it anyway. Sometimes, we humans try to protect others from pain by not mentioning things that they are obviously carrying with them every single day. However, this is anything but protective. This only forces our friends and family to carry the burden of their pain on their own. By mentioning the tough things, by talking about pain, by revisiting difficult times, or by simply discussing a loved one that has past, we humans are offering to carry the burden of pain with the people important to us. It strangely made me feel better to know that Julia teared up when she listened to this story as well. It was a very bad day that January 13th. But, hey, I think that scare led me back to where I belong and want to be—among the great Eastern White Pines and the great people I call family and friends. Funny how pivotal moments can come in a form as big as a missile scare and as small as a little message on Facebook. We should all try and do what Julia did for me this morning and more. Reach out and connect. It’s what we humans are supposed to do. As for ballistic missiles? I say destroy them all.