14 | JULY 20 • 2023
him to hold up his end of the deal by
dropping down and giving him 20 push-
ups. At a Pistons game many years ago,
Nick successfully convinced singer Kid
Rock to walk up to the concourse to grab
him chips and cheese. Backstage before
a concert in Cleveland, Nick ran up to
24-time Grammy Award winner Jay-Z
and asked, “Jay-Z, what’s your favorite
Jay-Z song?”
Right before his first brain surgery
when he was 10 years old, Nick and his
family were meeting with a world-re-
nowned pediatric brain surgeon who was
explaining step-by-step how the surgery
and post-surgery would go. The doctor
asked Nick if he had any questions. Nick
responded, “Yes, I have one question. Can
I go now? I’m absolutely starving. Do you
guys have macaroni and grilled cheese
downstairs?”
No, these aren’t tall tales. It was Nick
Gilbert, unapologetically, fearlessly, being
Nick Gilbert.
A CARING FRIEND
Ross Klar, Temple Israel’s youth engage-
ment coordinator, was close friends with
Nick since they were 10 years old. They
shared seven summers together at Camp
Tanuga in Kalkaska and were roommates
at Michigan State University for three
years.
Nick truly cared about each and every
one of his friends on a deep level, Klar
said.
Klar, at one point, was thinking about
going to grad school for sports psychol-
ogy, something he had spoken with Nick
about. It didn’t quite work out and Klar
decided not to go, but throughout the
four or five years since he made that
decision, Nick would still ask Klar if he
ever thought about reconsidering, know-
ing it was something he was interested in.
“If you told Nick about something, an
aspiration of yours, he was going to follow
up with all of his friends about all of their
hopes and dreams,” Klar said.
Nick also had a way of knowing when
one of his friends was feeling down.
“Nick would sense it and say something
to make you laugh. When you saw him,
you couldn’t help but smile. He was really
good at bringing the spirits up,” Klar said.
Nick didn’t just have a lot of friends, he
had about a dozen different friend groups.
Some people would maybe want to keep
their friend groups separate — Nick made
it his mission to intertwine them. Nick
valued togetherness and connectedness
— something his friends plan to carry
with them, along with many other lessons
Nick’s life taught them.
“It only took one meeting with him to
get his aura, his presence,” Klar said. “If
you’ve met him once, you’re one of his
friends. Once he has you in his phone
book, you’re going to get a happy birthday
text and a happy, healthy text on Rosh
Hashanah. That’s all it took.”
A ‘BIG LITTLE BROTHER’
To his siblings, Grant, Gracie, AJ and
Nash, Nick was often referred to as their
“big little brother.”
Nick was the oldest of the five, but at
the same time, the younger siblings were
taught at a young age to look after Nick,
hence the “little” in “big little brother.”
Because of his vision loss and the
increasing physical effects of his illness,
Nick’s siblings helped him get ready at
night and stayed at his bedside until he
laughed himself to sleep. They helped
him get dressed to go out and lifted
him through a crowd at a nightclub he
dragged them out to. They read entire
restaurant menus to him knowing full
well he’d choose the macaroni and cheese.
None of that was ever an obligation for
continued from page 13
OUR COMMUNITY
ON THE COVER
LEFT: Nick, in his signature bowtie,
celebrates during the 2011 NBA draft
lottery where the Cleveland Cavaliers
received the #1 pick in the draft.
continued on page 16