Merry pose of sisters with ‘dead’ grandpa goes viral

ISTANBUL

A photo showing two sisters posing happily with their bedridden grandfather went viral on Turkish social media June 20, with accusatory claims that the man was dead being proven wrong.

The photograph was shared on Facebook last week by one of the sisters. “Dear grandpa, let your place be Heaven, let angels meet you, God willing,” an accompanying message said.

The post went viral on Turkish social media this week with many users slamming the sisters for “posing so happily beside the corpse of a close relative.”

In fact, the man was paralyzed, not dead, at the time of the photo in February, but the sisters shared the old photo when their grandpa passed away last week, the Hürriyet Daily News learned.

One of the sisters sent a statement to news website haberand.com, “wishing God will punish those who highlight this fabricated news story.”

“Unlike what people said [on social media], we were not laughing. We were just smiling,” she added. “Some people say our grandpa looked so bad [appearing like a dead man], but he was 90-years-old then. Would you expect him to be laughing?”