I woke up this morning and remembered that Les is gone..gone the way he did. The sun was absent and I was still in shock and there was no word capable of consoling me and all those who adored him, loved him and depended on him to realize their own dreams.
Les Plesko was my teacher, my friend, and my mentor. I took his classes for six years at UCLA Extension and at his private workshop. The first time I met him, his toothless smile, his sun-burst skin and his distorted gaze reminded me of a homeless man. I had no idea that soon, his very class, would turn into the place where I’d feel the most at home.
Before knowing him, I was a sad mediocre housewife, a sad successful engineer, a sad anxious mother, and a sad good wife; just an ordinary woman with a dream: the dream of being a writer.
I met Les and my whole life changed. I was born again. Writing one single perfect page became my daily mission. I was saved from a full-length empty life filled with regrets. Because of him I dared to write. He made my life worth living. In the last years, he mentored me in writing The Suicide Note, a book born by the image of someone jumping off a building...and now this! Such an irony!
He touched so many lives, like mine, and yet couldn’t save his own. He lived as a modest man and yet was the most generous.
I still count on him to read the pages of my unfinished novel and to fill them with his crossed-outs, and Huhs and Cliches, plus – maybe- a few check marks. No, I am not ready to live in a world without Les. In my head, he is still looking at me shyly, wearing a white T-shirt from Goodwill, nodding “See ya next week!”, like telling me not to be scared of failing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQSnWX5GMyE
Beautiful eulogy from a talented student. My condolences.
Toothless people are funny, kind and caring!
Thanks Azarin and I wish that I could've met him.
I now have a deep respect for a man that I have never met, or had heard of before this short eulogy. Rest in peace.
Thank you so much for your caring comments!
This is a sample of his work:
The Writing Life by Les Plesko
There is somebody in this room who will become a writer. There’s someone here seduced enough by the vision you see, or think you see, that you’ll keep going. You are the person here who has wanted this all your life.
You’ve spent your time seized by vague longings for a lost world you’ve glimpsed, and you can’t get it out of your head. The feeling is so strong it makes you desperate. Any small sight or smell can set it off. You have carried this seed around like a lump in your throat, or a swelling in your chest. You have felt It rise and thought, “Why not me?” or “I can do this,” but then, perhaps, “life” took over. Yet you always felt your real life was waiting for you somewhere else. You know there’s something you should be doing that’s being neglected, and it is. It’s your writing calling you.
If you follow your heart, if you don’t quit, as most do, because writing is hard, I can tell you what will happen to you. Luckily, you will forget it. Then remember, then forget again.
Writing will break you and mend you. It will tear up your heart, but the heart heals and grows stronger. You will shatter yourself as you now know yourself, and you will welcome the shattering. In the course of the writing you will know exhilaration such as you’ve never known, like the top of your head has come off, and your chest aches, and you’ll weep tears of joy. And tears of grief, and frustration, and a bottomless sinking, but you will forget this when the exhilaration returns. And you will chase this. You will find It again. You’ll say, “Yes, this is why.”
Everything you thought you knew will be proved wrong. Everything you thought was important and necessary will fall away. If you love someone, your love will be tried. It may survive. If you’re looking for love, God forbid, you’ll find it. You will be in danger. You think you’ll die but you may live. You will grasp a new reality only to lose it again, until a newer reality seizes you. You will see the light, then it will fade until another light appears. You will follow the lights down into yourself. You will be broken and you will be recast. You will have a deep and abiding spiritual experience, and then you will lose it and wonder, “Where did it go? What was It I felt?” And you will say to yourself, “Of course I can stop.” And of course you can. Sure, you can stop, but only at the risk of your soul. You’ll know this. So you will risk everything, again. You will be heartsick and afraid, then heart-swollen and fearless. Writing will infect your life until it is your life, and there will be no turning back. You will learn what bravery is. You will be utterly and irrevocably transformed.
You will wonder, “How did I get here?” But you’ll know how. Then you’ll get back to work.