The Grandpa Eddie and the Miracle Story

1959

A True Story

Written 2006* 1022 Words*

By Howard Yasgar

At the time of this story in 1959, I was twenty-one years old and my grandfather Abraham Lazaroff was seventy- one years old. Everyone in the family called him Grandpa Eddy.

Grandpa Eddy had retired several years before and he and my grandmother Molly moved from New Haven Connecticut to Miami Beach Florida.

Everyone in our family insisted that Grandpa Eddie was crazy. They all thought that Florida was only swamp land, with lots of mosquitoes and cockroaches.

Regardless of what people said, every year, Grandpa Eddy would come back to New Haven for a couple of weeks to visit all his relatives.

Whenever he came back, he always referred to Florida as “The land of milk and honey”.

I remember Grandpa telling everyone that “In Florida they grew all kinds of delicious fruit, and it just grew wild everywhere, and it was all there free for the taking”.

He said, “People in Florida grew so much fruit they just threw most of it away”.

Unfortunately, I think Grandpa knew that no one believed him.

So, in 1959, to prove he was telling the truth, he brought an entire giant suitcase filled with all kinds of Florida fruits to show everyone.

The problem was, he had brought fruit that people in New Haven had never ever seen before.

He had Mango’s, Papayas, guavas and several kinds of little bananas, a coconut and lots of other stuff.

Unfortunately, these tropical fruits have a very short shelf life, so after being in Grandpa’s hot suitcase, it caused many of them to overripen and consequently they looked terrible and no one would eat them.

Grandpa tried so hard, he laid them all out on our kitchen table and cut them up for everyone to try.

But most were already too ripe.

I knew my grandpa meant well, and I felt sorry for him, especially when the family all made fun of him.

Even my mother said that Grandpa probably found all the fruit in someone’s garbage.

One day, while Grandpa Eddy was staying with us, he became very sick.

Whenever Grandpa Eddy came to New Haven, he usually slept in our spare bedroom.

He then used my bicycle to visit everyone.

One day he went to visit his daughter Lillian.

He was gone only a couple of days, but when he came home, he looked sick.

My mother, who was a registered nurse, said Grandpa looked seriously ill, and she was worried he might die in our house.

I must admit my grandfather did look terrible, so that’s when my mom put him in her bedroom.

All Grandpa Eddy would say was, “Please let me go home to Florida, once I get to Florida I will be OK”.

Mom called her two sisters, and they all knew that getting Grandpa back to Florida would be a

difficult task.

The family called an emergency meeting in our kitchen.

They said that for us to get to the airport in New York from New Haven it was a 70-mile drive. Then you would have to wait until 3 AM for the night owl flight to Miami, and that was a three-and-a-half-hour flight, and then there was the problem of getting Grandpa to his home from the airport.

I heard someone say, what happens if he dies along the way?

I wasn’t invited to the family meeting, but from my bedroom, I could hear some of the conversation.

Finally, when everyone was silent, I was called into the kitchen.

They said that it had been decided that Grandpa was indeed dying and I would have to accompany him on his last wish to return to Florida.

My mother said, don’t be afraid, if Grandpa passes away on the plane, you just tell the stewardess, and she will know what to do.

To say I was a little scared would be an understatement, but I said yes, I would do it.

That evening Grandpa was semi-conscious, and he looked very pale.

Everyone helped us get him downstairs and into my dad’s car for the 70-mile trip to New York.

Once we were at the airport they put him in a wheelchair, it was awful, and I could see from the expression on the wheelchair attendant’s face, he was thinking my grandfather was nearly dead.

Fortunately, there were very few people on the plane, so they put Grandpa next to a window, and I sat next to him.

As we sat there my grandfather looked so bad, his face was pale, I didn’t even want to look at him.

After about an hour and a half, Grandpa was just silently sitting there with his eyes closed.

Suddenly, he said, “I Smell Florida”.

That’s when I thought Grandpa was becoming delusional and I got scared, I wondered if people talked crazy like this just before they died.

Grandpa then started taking deep breaths, and suddenly his eyes were open.

He turned to me and he said, “I know we are near Florida, I can smell it”.

I couldn’t believe it, Grandpa’s face now had color in it.

By the time we reached Miami it was after four in the morning, and Grandpa Eddy appeared in

perfect health.

We both walked off the plane together and to the luggage pick up area, where he picked up and carried his own suitcase. It was truly a miracle

I called home just as I was instructed to do, it appeared everyone was still sitting there waiting for bad news.

Grandpa and I left the airport building in Miami and we crossed 36th street to a car rental agency where Grandpa Eddy rented a brand new 1959 Blue Chevrolet convertible, and he let me drive it to his rented cottage on Miami Beach.

If that wasn’t some kind of miracle, you tell me.