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

