When my children were little, they used to think that my grandparents’ apartment was New York. My kids could take or leave the rest of the city, and whether we stayed with my grandparents, or elsewhere, for them, Apartment 7H—those bookshelf-lined rooms and the absurdly uncomfortable Stickley furniture Norman was so proud of, and the chair situated in just exactly the right spot for Norman to sit and stare off into the distance as he blasted his classical records—was it. That was New York.
And of course it wasn’t really the apartment itself, though it’s true it is the single space that has remained ever-constant in the lives of all of Norman and Midge’s 13 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren, even as we went off to college and moved around and then settled into our adult lives. It was the two of them. They were our constants, and as much as our parents, they were the springboards as we turned ourselves outward in the world.
Though only the three youngest of the 13 first cousins grew up in New York, so many of us were drawn later to this place because of our grandparents, because they were the ones who showed us what this great, dazzling city, and also this great, extraordinary, gleaming nation, could and should be—and how could we not want to be a part of this place that launched our beloved Norman? We all came to be with them, to sit with them and learn from them and laugh and laugh and laugh with them. And in turn, in their abundant generosity, they also filled what they called their “country house” in East Hampton with bunk bed after bunk bed after bunk bed—they made it fantastically clear to each and every one of us that we were the great delights of their lives.
Decades ago, my grandparents participated in a National Review cruise. At some point, they were stopped by a couple on board who lavished them with praise, which, of course, was the best way to begin any conversation with my grandfather. The wife of the couple admitted she and her husband had been wondering what, exactly, my grandparents spent most of their time discussing. Literature? Politics? Judaism? Human nature? War? It was clear this fan was thrilled to have this insight behind the scenes of the marriage of these brilliant, learned, fascinating people. My grandparents turned to each other, shrugged, and answered honestly: “Mostly we just talk about our grandchildren.”
So many have spoken about Norman’s accomplishments, the incredible story of his life, his transformative words and the way they shaped and will continue to shape the nation he loved so much and so well, and in the past months I have read beautiful accounts of what he meant to so many people. But to me, he was, first and foremost, just my beloved grandpa Norman.
When I lived here in Brooklyn (and here I must say Norman was absolutely befuddled about why several of his grandchildren actually chose to live in Brooklyn when of course he had spent the first part of his life trying to get the hell out of it), I used to take the train to 86th Street and walk a few blocks, then call him from Tasti D-Lite, a diet-frozen-dessert place that was a mutual passion of ours, to read him the flavors on offer. I’d take his order and make my way down to 81st Street, and we’d sit in the kitchen and eat it and gossip because, oh, did he love gossip. He was the highest of the highbrow, but he exulted in his lowbrow pleasures, too.
The Norman the world knew was an intellectual giant who loved America and the ideas and the literature produced by the West. He understood something fundamental about how to live a life of meaning and also how to live as a grateful American who fought for all the things he loved so much and that he knew were good and true and right.
My Norman took everything he knew and used it to become the beloved patriarch of a growing family, binding all of his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren to our people and our country and to one another. He guided us, and he rejoiced in our triumphs and comforted us in our sorrows.
When it became clear he and Midge were going to get married—she was a divorcée with two small children, my mother Rachel and my aunt Naomi—he came to meet the kids for the first time. My mother, who was four years old, greeted him at the door and kicked him in the shin as hard as she could. Her feelings about him didn’t change much until some time later when this new family of four found itself on a very turbulent flight to visit my grandmother’s family in Minnesota (which, it’s worth noting, was just about Norman’s least favorite place in the entire country).
As the plane jumped around, my mom was stricken with panic and she dove into his lap in fear. She found him completely calm, unperturbed. He won her over then, and in that moment, and all the moments of her life that followed, he brought her such tremendous comfort. Even as she was dying, and he was distraught, he was a bedrock for her, and they spoke about her death when we were all too scared to face it.
I am so deeply grateful to him for that. For holding her hand when she was afraid, for holding mine and all of ours, and for so very many other things, including introducing my parents at a party and then, months later, inviting my father for a Passover seder at my mother’s behest. I am grateful to him for loving us so well and showing us what it means to love this great country and to serve it to the best of our abilities. Norman was, above all else, a gift to his family.
In his final years, he often compared life to a three-act play. Growing up, being grown, growing old. There was a guide for how it was all supposed to go, he told me. The last several years of his life were Norman’s Act 4, and he sometimes bemoaned not knowing how many scenes this act would have, or what might transpire in them. He wanted stage directions, and there were none. I’m still grateful that his final act gave us all so much more time with him, in those uncomfortable chairs in Apartment 7H. Being his granddaughter was one of the great blessings of my life.
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