Loyola High student Braun Levi celebrated at Manhattan Beach paddleout

Baywatch Redondo Beach sends up an arch from its watergun in tribute to Braun Levi. Photo by Kevin Cody
Baywatch Redondo Beach showers mourners at Braun Levi's paddleout. Photos by Kevin Cody
Several hundred friends and family members gathered at 1st Street in Manhattan Beach Sunday morning for a paddleout in celebration of the life of Braun Levi, the 18-year-old Loyola High star athlete and student who lost his life to an alleged drunk driver on May 4. But if the occasion for the gathering was tragic, those who came steadfastly followed the advice on the T-shirts many wore: “Live like Braun.” They danced and laughed and celebrated the young man who was known for the bolt of joyous energy he brought everywhere he went.  

“The Catholic Church teaches that God is bigger than ourselves, and the ocean is a perfect symbol, because it is ancient and ever new,” said Matt Schaeffer, Loyola’s director of Campus Ministry. “God is love. Let us pray, and thank God for the gift of light and love that was Braun. We ask for His help, in living like Braun.” 

Several of Braun’s friends, who identified themselves as his brothers, reiterated the same theme in different forms. “There was never a sad day,” said one, “when Braun was around.” 

He was around on Sunday. At least two hundred paddlers honored him, paddling into a circle, flowers floating in the gap between them. The Levi family had just moved to the South Bay after losing their Pacific Palisades home to the fires in January, but Braun’s larger-than-life presence had preceded their arrival. He already had hundreds of local friends. On Sunday, his yellow surfboard rested on the beach, and many of those friends signed the board and repeated the vow, “Live like Braun.” ER 

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