Rodrigo Márquez is the son of Gabriel García Márquez, Colombian author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera.

Rodrigo writes a letter to his late father in today’s NYTimes. He wonders what Gabriel would think about the current coronavirus given his plots around an insomnia pandemic and cholera. Perhaps that luck and fate determine whether one suffers and dies alone or surrounded by love.

Ironically, Rodrigo’s film Four Good Days about addiction was screened at Sundance this past January where it is said the coronavirus may have had the earliest detected spread in the U.S.