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Colombia

“Gabriel Garcia Marquez is dead and that is all that needs to be said.”

• by ninacolburn
• April 21, 2014

“Garcia Marquez is dead, and that is all that is needed to be said”,  pronounced his widow Mercedez Barcha last Thursday April 17 when Gabo died. There was much speculation about the exact cause of his death, but the family was always very respectful of the literary master’s wish for privacy, and besides, even though the journalists would have liked more information, what difference did it really make?

In 100 Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote, “dying is much more difficult than one would actually believe”.

It wasn’t Gabo’s style to explain something that was so obvious. Garcia Marquez was dead, what else did anyone need to know?

Marquez was treated successfully for cancer in 1999 in Los Angeles California, where his  son Rodrigo, who is a film maker, lives. I would imagine that Marquez was treated at the John Wayne Cancer Clinic, where my own mother was treated, but this  is only a supposition on my part.

Every year, since 2006 when Marquez turned 80, he began going out with his wife and celebrating another year of life with his friends and neighbors.  The prize-winning Nobel laureate always wore a yellow rose in his lapel when he appeared in public, saying that as long as he wore a yellow rose, nothing bad coud ever happen to him.

Throughout his later years Garcia Marquez was always surrounded by admirers and gawkers. He was always present in the most festive environments in both Cartagena and Mexico City. Gabo as he was called by everyone who loved him, was very popular, even by those people who had never even read his work. He was much-loved for his Caribbean-style wit and humor.

Today Monday April 21st thousands of Mexicans and Colombians will gather to say goodbye to one of the greatest writers of the 20th century in a unprecidented ceremony at Mexico City’s prestigious Palace of Fine Arts. Two sitting presidents from  two nations will pay their respects.

Garcia Marquez said of death, in one of his novel….”the bad thing about death, is that it is forever”

In my opinion Garcia Marquez and his work are immortal.