Letter to Nathaniel

[Brant Gaede]

March 12, 1982

Dear Nathaniel,

I drove into New York Monday evening to pay my respects to Ayn Rand at the Frank E. Campbell funeral home, 81st & Madison.

I arrived at 7:30, a line of people went well around the corner. Inside, elevators took you upstairs. In the jammed parlor, light classical music was being played. One [very large] arrangement of flowers formed a dollar sign.

The dark wood casket was in the room's corner. The first I saw of her was just her head. When I got closer I was struck by how small she seemed. If she had been twice as large I wouldn't have blinked an eye. I was struck also by how fine-featured and slim she was. She looked much younger than 77. The bottom of the casket was closed, her dress was black.

Driving home I cried. Her body was in the casket, she wasn't.

The next day I went to the Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. It was snowing. I got there at 11:30 AM, no one else was there. The open grave was lined with a steel vault. The heavy bronze or bronze-colored top was casually to one side with "Ayn Rand O'Connor" on top and on the front edge were the words "American Wilmet Corp." A green awning faced the grave. The dirt was on the right covered with a green tarpaulin. Frank O'Connor's unmarked grave was to the left. (West.)

I then left and drove up a hill overlooking the area. An easterly wind, not too strong, blew snow through the car window. Workers and equipment came and went.

About 1:30 the hearse and all the cars arrived. I wasn't going to go down there, but there were so many people and it was so public I couldn't resist a very simple, clean feeling to go on down.

I stood on the outside of a circle several people deep. Kipling's "IF" was being read while the snow came down heavily in big [huge] flakes, but not enough snow was on the ground to completely hide the brown grass. Some mourners had umbrellas.

Then two green-hooded workers came up and at a signal let the casket slowly descend. Scattered sobbing went up from those not crying silently, as was Leonard Peikoff in a chair under the awning.

There was then a formal break in the proceedings as a flexible 8' metal-legged tripod was positioned over the grave. A block and chain tackle lifted the top of the vault off the ground and lowered it into place, sealing it shut. The tripod was then removed.

A shovel of dirt and the mourners filed slowly between the awning and the [end] of the grave, each pausing to toss in a flower. Some then turned to nod to Leonard Peikoff before leaving. I didn't; I had nothing I could give him.

In my selfishness I tossed a pink iris [?] into the grave of Ayn Rand, Nathaniel. I thought only of myself and this is not a complaint or apology. I don't know if I would have been presumptuous enough to have tossed one for you, but I want anyone who reads these words to say if so desired, "Let me also toss that flower into that grave."

Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

I am extremely touched.

I was in Brazil at the time, so belatedly, I wish to toss in three red roses in my mind. One for me, one for Nathaniel and one for Barbara. I didn't know them then, but I do now.

Add one for Kat.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Brant; A really beautiful report!

"If" was read by David Kelley. I have been told that David had been asked to do this by Ayn Rand.

[BaalChatzaf]

Brant; A really beautiful report!

"If" was read by David Kelley. I have been told that David had been asked to do this by Ayn Rand.

Considering how Kelley has been treated since, the quip of Oscar Wilde comes to mind -- no good deed shall go unpunished.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Chris Grieb]

Bob; Good comment! I will share your comment with David Kelley the next time I see him.

[Brant Gaede]

Ayn Rand was a great human being. That is the bottom line. I met her once. We didn't exchange a word. That is all I will ever say about that to anyone.

--Brant

[Barbara Branden]

I wish to toss in three red roses in my mind. One for me, one for Nathaniel and one for Barbara.

Michael

Thank you, Michael. I went to the gravesite the following summer, and placed flowers on both graves. It seems appropriate to quote part of what I wrote in Passion about my thoughts that day:

"As I stood remembering, I thought that I had often grieved for Ayn's unhappiness in her last years. And yet, was grief appropriate? In the life of Ayn Rand, I had seen something I had never seen before nor ever heard or read of. Ayn had begun life with a single passionate goal -- to create her ideal world and her ideal man. And at the end of her life -- despite the odds against her, despite the pain and the losses, despite illness and anguish and death -- it was done. Perhaps it is for rhe rest of mankind that one should grieve.

"I stood by the weeping willow and I thought how fitting it would be if the legends of Valhalla were true. Ayn would travel to the paradise of the brave, the paradise assigned to heroes slain in battle. Eight guards would rise to salute her and to escort her on her new journey. But they would not be the guards of the legend. They wuld be Cyrus and Enjolras, and Leo, and Frank, and Howard Roark and Hank Rearden and Francisco d'Anconia and John Galt. Ayn had fought for Valhalla -- for Atlantis- - all of her life, and now she would enter its gates."

Barbara

[studiodekadent]

"I stood by the weeping willow and I thought how fitting it would be if the legends of Valhalla were true. Ayn would travel to the paradise of the brave, the paradise assigned to heroes slain in battle. Eight guards would rise to salute her and to escort her on her new journey. But they would not be the guards of the legend. They wuld be Cyrus and Enjolras, and Leo, and Frank, and Howard Roark and Hank Rearden and Francisco d'Anconia and John Galt. Ayn had fought for Valhalla -- for Atlantis- - all of her life, and now she would enter its gates."

Barbara,

That is truly a beautiful passage.

When Im studying in the US, I shall also be laying flowers at Ayn's grave.

[Brant Gaede]

The day Ayn Rand was buried I enquired at the cemetery office as to where the grave was. I didn't realize it until later that the gentleman I spoke to bore an uncanny resemblance to the actor who played the part of Karen Andre's defense attorney in the 1973 production of Penthouse Legend. I am all but absolutely sure it was the same man. Extremely distinguished looking with a shock of white hair and a light grey suit.

--Brant

Edited December 21, 2007 by Brant Gaede