Gabriel’s Garcia Marquez Farewell Letter

Gabriel Jose de la Concordia Garcia Marquez is a Columbian prose writer, journalist, publisher and politician, laureate of Neustadt International Prize for Literature and Nobel Prize in Literature.

He was known as Gabo in childhood, born on March 6, 1927 in the town of Aracataca and was the eldest of sixteen children of simple pharmacist Eligio Garcia and Luisa Santiago Marquez Iguaran.

He is one of the key personality of Latin American ‘Literature Phenomenon’ of the 1960-s. The most famous work of Columbian writer is considered the novel ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’.

The great writer was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer, appealed to readers with farewell letter:

If for an instant God were to forget that I am rag doll and gifted me with a piece of life, possibly I wouldn’t say all that I think, but rather I would think of all that I say.

I would value things, not for their worth but for what they mean.

I would sleep little, dream more, understanding that for each minute we close our eyes we lose sixty seconds of light.

I would walk when others hold back, I would wake when others sleep, I would listen when others talk.

How I would enjoy a good chocolate ice cream!

If God were to give me a piece of life, I would dress simply, throw myself face first into the sun, baring not only my body but also my soul.

My God, if I had a little bit more time, I would write my hate on ice, and wait for the sun to show. Over the stars I would paint with a Van Gogh dream a Benedetti poem, and a Serra song would be the serenade I’d offer to the moon. With my tears I would water roses, to feel the pain of their thorns, and the red kiss of their petals.

My God, if I had a piece of life…I wouldn’t let a single day pass without telling the people I love that I love them. I would convince each woman and each man that I love them, and I would live in love with love.

To all men I would say how mistaken they are when they think that they stop falling in love when they grow old, without knowing that they grow old when they stop falling in love.

I would give winds to children and by myself I would teach him how to fly.

I would teach the old that death does not come with old age, but with forgetfulness.

So much have I learned from you, people.

I have learned that everyone wants to live on the peak of the mountain, without knowing that real happiness is in how it is scaled.

I have learned that when a newborn child holds with its little hand his father’s finger, it has trapped him for the rest of his life.

I have learned that a man has the right to look down on another only when he has to help the other get to his feet.

From you I have learned so many things, but in truth they won’t be of much use, for when I keep them within this suitcase, unhappily shall I be dying.