If it had been some teenage babysitter tweeting all day, would we have been so kind and unquestioning?

For example, I lost my father as a small child. I can kind of know how you felt when you lost your father, but not exactly.

We all handle that pain in different ways.

How on earth can someone judge that?

I don’t understand.

I tweet about my tragedy to help others, spread my daughter’s story, raise awareness for CHD and to help myself. Someone else who loses a child might have similar thoughts as you. Someone else might close their Twitter account for good.

I for one, am glad this controversy is behind us.

I wish neither of us had to experience tragedy or tweet about it, but I am glad Twitter helped both of us.
.-= Kristine´s last blog ..Cora’s story =-.

Keep in mind that she wasn’t tweeting a play-by-play of the event as it unfolded. It’s not as though she tweeted “my son fell in the pool” before she pulled him out. It’s not as though she was standing with him as they worked on him, and then just left the room to go twitter. So she wasn’t really tweeting in the middle of a crisis, as it unfolded. She was quite simply sending out a prayer request at the moment when prayers were most urgently needed and when asking for prayer was all that she could do.

Realizing that the message that was sent out was in fact a prayer request, the tweet makes complete sense. Many who have access to prayer chains would have made a phone call from that hospital waiting room to ask for prayers; that one call would have started a series of phone calls that would have gotten a group praying. But those phoned in prayer chains take time – the phone is an older medium, and it is not immediately far-reaching. As each person calls another person to ask for prayers, precious minutes go by. So while a telephone prayer chain is more conventional (because it has been more often used in the past, because phones are older than computers), that medium is generally not as effective as a computerized channel.

Now, that one little tweet sent out from the hospital waiting room took seconds to send. And in a manner of seconds, it may have gotten 5,000+ people praying for one little boy and his family. For those who believe in the power of prayer, that volume of support is significant enough to warrant sending a quick tweet from the hospital. So I completely understand why she would have done it.

But even if I didn’t understand her, that wouldn’t give me the right to judge her. She was dealing with something; she handled it in the way that felt right to her. At that moment, that is all that matters.

But would you do that if it were your husband and not your father? Can you imagine leaving your child’s side at that moment, so you could go get support for yourself? Or would you get through it, be there for them, and then later reach out?

As I said earlier, I get the point of blogging and tweeting and reaching out for support. I don’t really understand doing that in the middle of a crisis, as it unfolds. I can’t imagine calling a friend on the ambulance ride to the hospital or whatever the equivalent would be.

I think that is what is throwing people off so much.

But one of the things I don’t understand about all of this is that bloggers act like they aren’t writing in public, that they are writing for their intimates. Blogs are not for intimates. Tweets are not for intimates, no matter the settings, since they get spread everywhere.

Yes, you are reaching out for support, but you are also reaching out beyond your ability to control.

It’s so hard, knowing what to do and when to do it. But I don’t know that speaking on the “right” side would have been necessary if people had just kept their cool.
.-= Rebecca (Ramblings by Reba)´s last blog ..Peppermint bark: reason #7654 I love my husband =-.

I do have a very strong opinion about the accident, but since I am not a “troll”, I have kept my mouth shut about it and said nothing, and I will continue to say nothing since it is NONE OF MY BUSINESS. If only we could all do that……
.-= Megan´s last blog ..Mama Called The Doctor & The Doctor Said…… =-.

YES. PERFECT.

But that emotion is also what makes this such a wonderful place. Because we care THAT MUCH.