Everyone has their own way of dealing with the death of a friend or relative. I am very quiet on such occasions, turned inwards, and want to be left alone with my mourning. And certainly, the idea to exhibit my friendship and emotional closeness with a recently deceased by posting about it in social media is something alien to me, something I cannot understand at all.

Now that the news has become known that a very talented Bulgarian poet, Nikolai Atanasov, has died at the age of 41 years only, dozens of my FB friends expressed their grief and shared poems. But many also wrote very detailed personal reminiscences, anecdotes, descriptions of experiences, the respective person has had with the deceased, analyzing his life, his poetry, his health, his sexual orientation, his character, and what not.

What struck me and made me infinitely sad: out of everything what the friends of the deceased wrote, one thing became clear: here someone had died, who for a very long time was very sick, poor and socially completely isolated, someone who had practically no emotional support, according to many of his friends, someone who over the years showed clearly signs of poor and deteriorating physical and mental health. I would have wished that among those who claimed to have been friends with the deceased only one would have proved to be a true friend, and would have done something to save the poet from the abyss in which he now obviously perished. Maybe he would be still alive.

But that’s the way it is: once an artist or poet has died in misery, those who have let him/her down and who didn’t extend a helping hand when it was desperately needed, celebrate themselves and their “great friendship” with the dead post mortem. I wonder if at least one of these friends feels ashamed?!

© Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki, 2014-9. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.