[rohrpost] A man says farewell (fwd)

[Reinhold Grether <Reinhold.Grether@uni-konstanz.de>]

A man says farewell...


translation by Rafael Jesus Gonzalez


Gabriel Garcia Marquez has retired from public life for reasons of

health: lymphatic cancer. Now it seems that he grows ever more ill. He

has sent a letter of farewell to his friends, and thanks to the

Internet, it is being diffused: 



"If God for an instant would forget that I am a cloth marionette and

would give me a piece of life, possibly I would not say all that I

think, but I would think all that I say. I would give value to all

things, and for what they are worth, but for what they mean. I would

sleep little, dream more; I understand that for each minute that we

close the eyes, we lose sixty seconds of light. I would walk when others

pause, wake when others sleep. I would listen when others talk, and how

I enjoy a good chocolate ice-cream! If God would give me a piece of

life, I would dress simply, throw myself face-down, leaving bare, not

only my body but my soul. My God, if I had a heart, I would write my

hate on ice and wait for the sun to rise. I would paint a dream of Van

Gogh on the stars, a poem of Benedetti s and a song of Serrat s; it

would be the serenade I would offer to the moon. 


I would water the roses with my tears so I could feel the pain of their

thorns, the incarnate kiss of their petals... My God, if I had a piece

of life I would not let a single day pass by without telling the people

I love that I love them. 


I would convince each woman or man that they are my favorites and I

would live in love with love. I would prove to the men how mistaken they

are to 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 wings to a child, but I would let him learn to fly by

himself. I would teach the old that death comes not with age, bur with

forgetfulness. I have learned so much from you, humanity I have learned

that everyone wants to live on the top of the mountain, without knowing

that true happiness lies in the way of climbing the slope. 


I have learned that when a new-born grasps with his small fist the

finger of his father for the first time, he has him trapped forever. I

have learned that a man has the right to look down upon another only

when he is to help him to rise. They are so many, the things that I have

been able to learn from you, but really they will not help me much,

because when they put me in that suitcase, unfortunately, I will be

dying." 


Gabriel Garcia Marquez






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