UCLA ranks at the top of all universities globally, and has more applicants than any other college in the U.S. It was there I completed the Writing Program with a 4.0+GPA, and also worked at UCLA when my brother, who died in 2008, lived nearby at the end of San Vincente in Santa Monica, and had an office on Wilshire.
We'd meet for the occasional lunch or go to dinner at Mario's in Westwood, Gladstone's for Fish in Malibu, or Mort's Deli in Pacific Palisades. Good memories associated with UCLA and WLA abound. And while Royce Hall, pictured above, is one of the most recognized of campus structures--my favorite campus locale was the John Wooden Center. It was the scene of fierce lunchtime racquetball battles with my group of co-worker friends.
Having struggled to reconcile myself with my brother's tragic death, I recalled after the recent UCLA-USC game that when Coach Wooden's wife, Nell, died in March 1984 he began writing letters to her on the 21st of each month, which he has continued even to today at age 99. I decided to do the same and every 23rd of the month write my brother a letter and place it in a box covered with a Monet image of the sea.
As I wrote the initial one--I could almost feel him sitting across from me--laughing and being his handsome, witty self as if we were at one of those Westside tables. I mention this because everyone has at sometime in their life some difficult sorrow--and if this worked for UCLA's Coach Wooden--a truly wonderful and wise man, it might help others, too.
