“I had a son Blake too,” he said. “And he was the best out west. Just a tremendous young man. And dies at the age of 58. That’s not the way it’s written up there. And I’m 86 now and I’m still flopping around like I am. I would have traded places, if someone would give me a chance.” His voice broke.

Even apart from Blake’s death, Nordstrom has had a trying year, with sales down and dim prospects for retail depressing the company’s stock. Erik said that, especially given the challenges, he still reflexively reaches for Blake’s advice all the time.

“Something will come up and I’ll have this thought in my head like, ‘Oh, Blake’s better at that,’ or ‘That’s Blake’s strength’ and then, ‘Oh, I can’t go there.’ And the reason I can’t go there is because he’s not here. And the emotional part comes.”

But as Peter and Erik mourn their brother’s absence, they feel lucky to work in a place where so many people know who he was. Part of him is in the culture of Nordstrom, they say. In the New York store, casts of his footprints will be in two separate places, one looking out over the city and the other in the shoe department.

Peter and Erik feel similarly about their own legacies, about likely being the last Nordstroms to run the company. Though Peter’s children are young, he and Erik seem fairly sure that their successors will not be Nordstroms.

“I just think it’s a different deal for our kids,” Peter said. “There’s a lot of work to get from here to there.”