A memorial service full of laughter and tears was held on
Tuesday for third-year law student Peter Santos, who passed away in
March.
About 75 students and faculty members gathered in the UCLA
School of Law courtyard to remember a friend and student whom
Professor Laura Gomez referred to as “the funniest guy in the
law school.”
Poster boards with pictures of Santos and his friends lined the
courtyard, as well as a photograph of Santos with the words of
Mother Teresa: “Sorrow is not forever … love is.”
Santos, whom Gomez described as a “devoted son,”
died of natural causes while visiting his mother in his hometown
near Sacramento last month. He was 28.
Santos’ mother, who was gravely ill, passed away Monday
afternoon.
Santos’ friends and professors took turns telling stories
and sharing their memories of him, describing him as
“incredibly funny,” “extremely insightful”
and “generous.”
Gomez, who had a colleague read her written remarks because she
couldn’t attend the service, spoke about her impressions of
Santos after having him in one of her seminars.
“I was struck by his intellectual interest in the
material,” Gomez said, adding that Santos “will be
deeply missed.”
Friends spoke of their time with Santos as a gift.
Greg Miner, a third-year law student, tearfully recalled how
Santos “had a certain magic about him and infused in
everything he did.”
Miner remembered all the good times they had together, saying
that “no one could celebrate like he could.”
One friend recalled that Santos had handed her a vodka cranberry
drink in the middle of one of their classes on her 21st
birthday.
Brenda Tavakoli, also a third-year law student, remembered
Santos as “one of the most selfless people I’ve ever
met.”
Tavakoli spoke of how Santos would provide his house as a place
for his friends to study and try to keep them from becoming too
stressed.
“He made everyone he knew feel special,” Tavakoli
said. “I will miss him forever.”
One friend recalled a time when Santos purchased a pair of Gary
Coleman shoes off the Internet, while another friend spoke of
helping Santos sneak a cat out his apartment so his landlord
wouldn’t know he had been cat-sitting.
Santos graduated from UC Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree
in 1996.
Before enrolling in the UCLA law school in fall 2000, Santos
worked as a stand-up comedian. He also wrote several sitcom pilots
and worked as a writer for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
While Santos was attending UCLA, he became a student mentor to
first-year law students and served as a student liaison to the
Beverly Hills Bar Association.
He also wrote for the law school newspaper and edited the
Entertainment Law Review.
Santos recently got a job at Grenada Entertainment; after his
graduation in May, he hoped to become an entertainment lawyer.