I’ve never loved a writer more or since than Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

He wrote some of the best books I’ve ever read in a brilliant, creative, and unique style. Only Marquez could write like Marquez.

When I lived in New York City, a bookstore on the East Side kept his books in a particular pile waiting for me when they were published; they knew I would come for them.

As a reporter, I dreamed of traveling with him to Cuba to watch Yankee baseball games with Fidel Castro. They were best friends. What a dinner that would have been to write about.

And I always did, and right away.  A new Marquez book was a special event in my life.

My favorites are One Hundred Years of Solitude, Chronicle Of A Death Foretold, Love In The Time of Cholera, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, Of Love and Other Demons, and A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings, a book I read but lost and forgot, it is on the way.

He wrote with the heart and a massive heart about ghosts, spirits, love-sick men, and demented dictators.  I loved the photo of young Marquez; it said a lot about him. I know no one remotely like him. He’s been dead way too long.

Last week, I ordered a portrait of Marquez online (a Canvas Print by Everett), which arrived today in a box frame. I also realized I had never read his autobiography, Living To Tell The Tale. It looks familiar. It came today, so I have a Marquez monument in my stuffed and crowded office.

I’m making room for it; the portrait is going up on the wall where I can see it. It says a lot about writing at its best.

He inspires me, casts a spell,  and makes me cry.