The Pequeño Puño

Recently, Gabriel García Márquez, who is dying of lymphatic cancer, composed his good-bye letter to his readers and family. He said lots of mostly expected things, like how he should have smelled more flowers and told more people he loved them, but he also had a little section about the things he has learned in his long life. One of them was this:

"He aprendido que cuando un recién nacido aprieta con su pequeño puño, por primera vez, el dedo de su padre, lo tiene atrapado por siempre."

This means: I have learned that when a newborn baby, with his tiny fist, grabs his father's finger for the first time, he has him trapped forever.

Truer words were never spoken. The Great Plotnik has always felt a little sorry for all the workaday, traveling, hustling, ambition-driven Dads in this world who never got to watch their kids grow up. Because 'Plotnik' and 'Ambition-driven' were very infrequently used in the same sentence, and because The Great Ducknik was not only willing to put up with him but had a career she enjoyed and worked hard to maintain, Plot got lucky. Working at home, he got to stay close to The Great PD and The Great BZWZ in a way many Dads can't, which means that today he can smile and nod with understanding at Don Márquez's sage words.

Yes, yes, Plotnik knows it takes a bit of an inflated ego to compose your own obituary and then stick around to read the reviews. (Plotnik once wrote a short story about a composer who did the same thing, then had to fake his own death so he could come to his own funeral to hear the music he'd written for it.)

But Gabriel García Márquez has written giant books. And he's Colombian. Give the man a break. And as for the pequeño puño, simón carnál. That's Chicano and you can't translate it.