Weekly Post 8

While I was reading the story about Beachie Creek and the Tofte family, I was heartbroken. I felt all kinds of emoitons for the dad and was so happy to find out he found his wife, and then I was sad to hear about her condition. Then I felt hope because I thought that there may be a chance that the son would be found, however, my emotions quickly changed to feeling heartbroken to hear about the son, family dog, and grandma, who were all found together in a car. My heart goes out to the Tofte family and wish them the best in healing and grieving.

Grieving is such a hard thing, especially when this family had lost almost everything. Their home is gone, and now Chris and Angela have to grieve losing their son Wyatt, family dog Duke, and Angela had also lost her mother, Peggy. Whenever there is a tragedy, I find that most people are willing to help on Facebook, but Twitter is a great social media platform too to help out others. I believe by spreading their story on Twitter, when people retweet a link, their followers see and so on, more poeple are able to see the story, rather than just some people’s friends who would easily just skip over. Also, Twitter has so many people on the platform, even celebrities, so if a heart wrenching story reaches someone with thousands of followers, it reaches more people than imaginable. Word seems to spread faster on Twitter and starting to spread awareness on the platform will help other become more aware of what is happening in Oregon and the tragedy that hit the Tofte family. Spreading the information about the loss of the Tofte family may reach people out in Oregon and those people could help donate clothing, food, possible shelter places and other day to day items to help ease the stress of the Tofte family and other families trying to get these resources.

One resource that may be helpful for Chris and Angela is The Dougy Center. The Dougy Center is based in Oregon, which is their home state, and is a center that helps families and children through grief. They provide so many resources such as support groups for all ages, greif tips, and independent couseling sessions. This may be extremely helpful towards the Tofte family and others who are going through a similar situation out at Beachie Creek and hopefully make this tough time a little easier.

grief-resources (The Dougy Center link)