Category: Miami Stories

I grew up on the North Shore of Boston in the ‘50s and ‘60s in a small blue-collar town with its four seasons. It took me years to figure out why every year I would get “blue” in August. I loved summer, beaches, the sun, and walking around in flip flops. In August, I knew the winter, the cold and snow were coming and I did not like that fact.

Once, in my early 20s, I begged my girlfriends to take a trip somewhere in warmer climate where there were beaches, sun, and I could walk around in flip flops. The three of us traveled to Bermuda and, on my second day there, while I was sunning on famous Horse Shoe beach, along came my future husband with two of his friends, all from Italy.

Marcello and I hit it off right away, even though I thought he was German and told him that. (He had blond hair and green eyes.) With his hands flying around, he told me he was Italian and from Tuscany. Six months later, we were married and were trying to decide whether to live in Boston, Bermuda, or somewhere else.

Marcello told me that when he was a little boy he always dreamed of Miami Beach. He also is a beach bum, likes the sun, heat, and walking around in flip flops. So, the bold decision was made that we would move to South Florida.

Marcello flew down in late 1972 and stayed with my second cousin until he found a job and an apartment for what was now a family of three (our daughter Diana was born in Boston in October 1972). He found a job at famous Valenti’s Restaurant on U.S. 1 in Kendall, and worked there for several years.

Marcello’s goal was to own and operate an Italian restaurant within five years of our settling in Miami in early 1973. He made that dream come true in 1977 when he opened Il Pappagallo Italian Cuisine in Perrine on U.S. 1. It was a small restaurant that could seat approximately 55 people, and it was very successful for almost 30 years. Marcello and several of his original staff – Karin from Germany, Anna from Italy, and Ugo from Argentina – were with us for many years. People came from all over Miami-Dade, and even from the Keys and Broward County, to dine in our quaint little restaurant.

Our first residence was in King’s Creek apartments across from the huge Dadeland Mall. I would walk there with my newborn daughter and shop at Jordan Marsh and Burdines. A couple of years later, we moved to the Briar Bay/Falls area and have owned our home for 34 years. I now walk to The Falls and shop at Macy’s.

Our second daughter Cristina was born at Baptist Hospital in Kendall on Christmas Day, 1974. On Cristina’s 10th birthday we hired a white limo and had the limo driver dress up as Santa and we ate at the beautiful Reflections restaurant in Bayside. For fun, we would take day trips and a picnic lunch to the Keys, Matheson Hammock, Cape Florida and Miami Beach. Life was good.

Our daughters went to Killian and Palmetto schools and received their degrees from Florida International University. They now live in Central Florida but still love Miami and would like to move back.

While Marcello was at his beloved restaurant, I worked for the federal government in Miami for 36 years as an international trade specialist for the U.S. Department of Commerce. In this position, I was very lucky to have met many members of the international community, exporters, and local, state and federal government officials. It has been a joy to see how Miami International Airport and PortMiami have grown into world class operations. In 2009, I received the International Women’s Day Award from the World Trade Center Miami and in 2011, the International Business Woman of the Year Award from the Organization for Women in International Trade.

The Santucci family will always remember how Miami was a small city and how it has changed since we arrived in 1973. Back then, the tallest building in downtown Miami was a bank and, of course, the Dade County Courthouse on Flagler. Miami Beach was full of rental apartments for the elderly and you would see them sitting out on the front porches in rocking chairs, enjoying the salt air and sunshine.

We did survive Hurricane Andrew even though we lost the restaurant business for four months, and our home was half destroyed. We never thought of leaving, but only thought of rebuilding. On the first day of reopening our restaurant we gave all proceeds to Zoo Miami (then Metro Zoo) and to a homeless shelter.

Miami is and will always be our home town. We love that it has evolved into an international city with people from many cultures and countries. On our small cul de sac we have families from China, El Salvador, Brazil, Cuba, and other U.S. states.

Over the years, we took at least 15 cruises, and have made many trips to Italy to visit Marcello’s family and to New England to visit my family. But, we are always pleased to return to our home, Miami.

I was always amazed at one coincidence Marcello and I shared. He and I were both born near the 42nd parallel north – he in Tuscany, Italy, and I near Boston, Massachusetts. And from our early childhood years, we both knew we wanted to live south in a warmer climate.

Marcello and I are now retired near the 26th parallel north in Briar Bay/The Falls, and are enjoying the sun, beaches, and walking around in our flip flops! Dreams do come true…..

I was born 70 years ago at Jackson Memorial Hospital. My father had done his surgical training there in the late 1930s, following his mother’s move to Miami from Tennessee.

My great-grandparents came to Coral Gables in 1928, and my mother’s family wintered here and later took the grandparents’ home. My parents’ wedding reception on Nov. 18, 1941, was the last major event at the Biltmore Hotel before it became an Army hospital.

Dad was happy to find a house after WW II, since properties were scarce. It was located near Bird and Red roads, which had Allen’s Drug Store, Woolworths, and B Thrifty. Our street was next to the rock pit where we played with the dreaded BB guns. It is now the site of the YMCA. In 1950, we moved a few blocks east to Coral Gables.

Starting in 1947, I went to JMH with my father, and after ninth grade, Dad got me summer jobs at the hospital to see if I really wanted to be a doctor. The hospital was segregated, but I worked with and under African Americans, which was very enlightening for me.

In 1958, my first summer at JMH, my monthly salary as a pharmacy tech was $212. I worked eight summers with no salary increase. In 1970, I treated Cuban refugees from the Freedom Flights in the rooms of the old ER.

Dad was willing to pay 10 cents for the Venetian Causeway instead of using MacArthur Causeway to get to my aunt’s flower shop on 36th Street. While riding the flower shop truck in the 1950s, I marveled at the wonderful new hotels in Miami Beach. I remember Dixie Highway (U.S. 1), with its two lanes, and along the two lanes of Kendall Drive, there was only tall saw grass.

In 1950, my father’s commute improved when he moved to the 550 Building on Brickell. It was the first office building on “mansion road.”

Because of a shortage of schools, 50 children were in my Coral Gables Elementary first grade classroom and we had to share desks. I became very proficient at air-raid drills. I wasn’t allowed to go to the Venetian Pool because of the fear of polio, and I was among the first to get the Salk vaccine.

Every Saturday, for 25 cents, I spent most of the day at the Miracle Theater. When I was older, I never used the double seats at the Coral Theater, but was jealous of those who did. We took buses everywhere, including to downtown Miami.

Our family ate dinners at Red Coach Grill, Edith & Fritz, and Batista’s, later called Delmonico’s, at Ponce de Leon Blvd. and Douglas Road. For seafood, we usually ate at Loffler Brothers, and on big occasions at Chesapeake’s. I would eat four or five mini cheeseburgers at Royal Castle, and never worried about it. Shorty’s BBQ seemed a long trip from the Gables but worth the drive.

At Christmas time, we drove to see the house lights, especially on South Alhambra Circle. We also went to Burdines to see the train exhibit and to ride the Ferris wheel. Of course, one had to visit the outdoor display at Holsum Bakery.

The heat at school and home wasn’t much fun during the warm months. The large attic fan helped a little, but nothing like our first wall AC unit when I was 10. During summer school, I drenched my starched shirts at the UM “cardboard campus,” which had no air conditioning. That site became part of the “new” War Memorial Youth Center. Because Tahiti Beach cost 10 cents, we went to Matheson or Crandon parks, which had the zoo. In high school, we water skied by the mangroves near Key Biscayne Yacht Club and would leave our stuff on the beaches behind private homes.

Other thoughts about growing up here: At the Coliseum, I enjoyed seeing Golden Glove boxing matches and the Harlem Globetrotters, and later enjoyed bowling when it was converted. Initially, in the Gables, we could drive through the Douglas Entrance and along University Drive through UM to Ponce de Leon Junior High. The air raid siren sounded every Saturday at noon and the UM carillon played at 5 p.m. on Sundays.

As to the demographic changes in South Florida, a few years ago I started studying Spanish, which tells it all. Coral Gables and the rest of South Florida is certainly different from my youth, but I still love it and am thankful to be home.

South Miami Heights — it brings a smile to my face. I wish the kids of today could have had the childhood we had — it was so simple.

Dad was the first of the six Sinclair brothers to move from Massachusetts to South Florida. Mom and Dad moved to Miami in the late ’50s, where they rented an apartment across the street from the Orange Bowl. I was born soon after at Jackson Memorial Hospital; I think the entire bill for the birth was about $115.

We lived in the aptly named Orange Bowl Court Apartments, and when a game was played in the OB, Dad and other OB Court renters made a few dollars parking cars on the premises. Four of my uncles followed, they worked in Doral and later settled with their families in Broward County.

Soon they heard of homes being built 25 miles south, starting at only $11,000. They packed their bags and moved south, to everyone’s dismay — it was just so far away!

Our new home was situated directly across the street from South Miami Heights Elementary. The house was a terrazzo-floored, jalousie-windowed single-family home with three bedrooms, two baths, and a turquoise eat-in kitchen with a nook where the whole family sat for every meal. Best friends Nancy and Linda were my constant companions. We went from kindergarten through high school together.

Some Saturdays, Linda and I walked up to 7-Eleven story for their famous Icee drinks, and we got the jumping beans candy for free. Food Fair, Mike’s drug store, and the pediatrician’s office were all within a mile from our homes. Where everyone shopped, they were known by name. We cannot forget the Cutler Ridge Cinema, and the Saturday morning matinee, for 10 cents.

My dad Ray was a sign painter and worked for Richards and Grant’s department stores. Later, he got a job on with Miami-Dade’s Parks and Recreation Department and retired 25 years later as the county sign painter, back when signs were actually hand-painted. He moonlighted doing his favorite thing, playing the drums. He played the drums with various bands throughout South Florida over the years, both paid and unpaid. Dad was one of the few people I have ever known who truly enjoyed his work. He vowed he would die with drumsticks in his hands, and when he died in 2008, we made sure he took them with him.

My Mom Sarah was a waitress at a few local spots, but most memorable for me was the Bowl-0-Mat, on 87th Avenue and U.S. 1. Sometimes, she would take me along and send me over to the roller skating rink during her shift. I LOVED that.

As a teen, I joined Dad and his guitar-playing friends and their families in a weekly bowling team; it was lots of fun. In between, having four more children, Mom later worked at Palmetto Golf Course where, during the summer, she would load us into her green Chevy station wagon with all our friends and we’d hang out at the pool all day.

The days were long and after breakfast, bed-making and washing the dishes, we were sent outside to play — no TV for us. Give us a ball and a bottle cap and we played for hours, a rock scratched upon the sidewalk and you now have hopscotch.

At 4 p.m., my brother Ray and his friends Lee and David would start humming, “Nah nah nah nah na, BATMAN!” and the three of them would run off into one of their homes to watch.

Our year of seventh grade at Cutler Ridge Junior High was great. Then, for eighthh grade, we were tangled up in politics — integration had begun. We would now be bused into Goulds, the neighborhood east of the highway just south of our neighborhood. National TV reporters were in town, police were everywhere, and accusations, threats, and emotions ran high.

Impromptu schools began popping up; some white parents didn’t want their kids going to Goulds for schooling. Classroom assignments and bus routes were received and I was to be at the corner for bus pick-up early Monday morning. The weekend before school started was hectic. My friends called to tell me they were not going to school, none of them. I, being a very shy, awkward, freckle-faced pre-teen, was scared to death to be alone at a new school with no friends, so I begged my mom to let me stay home. She, the all-knowing mother that she is, said, you will go to school and you will be just fine. Yes, I went. Mom was right; we were fine. We developed some great friendships and learned a lot about different cultures.

To this day, we remain close to our childhood friends, although most have moved away. I am sad when I go through the neighborhoods and see no one — no kids playing, no neighbors in the yard talking, no bicycles ….

My friends, you don’t know what you are missing.

In 1924, Jo and Frank “Spud” Murphy came to Miami from Port St. Joe in the Florida Panhandle. Originally, they were both from Alabama.

My grandfather is nicknamed Spud, after Irish potatoes. He got an offer for a better job as a bookkeeper to move to Miami. They bought a house in Allapattah and my grandfather took a job with Mill’s Rock Company. In those days, rock pits were blasted using dynamite. In a freak accident, there was a premature explosion and the owner, Robert Mills, and several workers were killed. After this happened, Ed Mills, one of the Mills brothers, took my grandfather in as partner. This became a longtime, well-known, road-building business known as “Murphy and Mills.”

In 1923, Rilla and Tom Murrell decided to move to Miami from Alabama to escape the cold and come down to the wonderful weather and easy-going lifestyle. They bought a house in Miami Springs and opened a beauty salon and barber shop together on the circle. My grandfather, Tom, also became the first postmaster of Miami Springs. My grandparents lived in that house until they passed away. My grandmother always grew a wonderful vegetable garden. Men and women would come from all over to have their hair done by my grandmother.

My grandparents all weathered the 1926 hurricane. Back then, they did not have the knowledge of hurricanes like we do today. My grandfather Murphy was stuck out in the storm at a gas station.

My mother, Ann Murphy Murrell, was born in 1931 at Jackson Memorial Hospital in the Alamo Building, which is still there as a historical site. When she was born, that was the only building at Jackson. She went to Miami Jackson High School and was a majorette in the marching band. After high school, my mom attended the University of Miami.

My father, Lee Murrell, was born in 1930 at his family home. He went to Miami Edison High School where he played football and ran track. He played back in the days when they wore leather helmets and facemasks. They did not even know what a mouth piece was. Can you imagine — they traveled around Florida by plane to play other high school teams?

After high school, he also attended the University of Miami. That is where my mom and dad met; a mutual friend introduced them. They dated for a while and then were married in the First Baptist Church of Allapattah.

My mom worked as a secretary before becoming a housewife. My dad worked for Holsum bakery with his own delivery route. Then in the 1950s, they bought property in North Miami at 131st Street and West Dixie Highway. They bought a Carvel ice cream franchise and built a Carvel shop. This was the beginning of their first business. My parents were living in Allapattah at the time, so to be closer to the Carvel, they bought a piece of property in North Miami and built their first home.

In the 1960s, they sold the Carvel store then went across the street and opened an ice cream and hamburger place called Lee’s. This became the new hangout for the North Miami kids. After owning Lee’s for a few years, the long hours were just too much while raising four kids. My father sold Lee’s and started M&M; Landscaping.

In the meantime, he went to the Lowe Art Museum to take a metal sculpting class as a hobby and also went to Coconut Grove in the 1960s to take a class to learn to make jewelry. Well, a hobby became a business. He was making jewelry and metal sculptures and selling them at arts and crafts shows. He stopped making the jewelry, but he still has his metal sculpture business, Copper Creations by Lee. Now, 45 years later, he is still doing art shows and selling online at Etsy. When anybody asks my dad where he is from, he still says, “My-am-uh,” like a native.

My mother and father had four children. The two oldest were born at Mercy Hospital, and the two youngest at North Shore. We were raised in North Miami when it was just a small town where everyone knew each other. We would ride our bikes everywhere and loved hanging out at Haulover Beach and Greynolds Park. We loved going to eat at Pumpernick’s, and then we would go to the First Baptist Church of North Miami. All four of us graduated from North Miami Senior High; we were true “Pioneers”!

Some of us still live here, and some have moved on. My parents have seven grandchildren, who were all born in Miami. My father has one great-granddaughter. We are University of Miami Hurricanes and Miami Dolphin’ fans. When the Marlins came to Miami, we became big fans of them, as well. My mother was one of their biggest fans, going to almost every game. After the games, we would go to Rascal House to enjoy dinner. She had a room in her home dedicated to all three sports teams. My parents always loved Miami, and my mother believed going to the beach could cure anything.

I have written this story in memory of my mother, who always wanted to write this story. Sadly, she passed away July 29, 2013, so I used her notes to write this piece.

I’ve visited Miami often over the past 20 years, sleeping on friends’ couches, perusing thrift stores, gorging on ceviche, watching the ever-changing crowd along Ocean Drive.

But it wasn’t until 2009, when I stepped outside all comfort zones to research my book, Fringe Florida, that I got an inside glimpse into the diverse and quirky glory that defines Miami.

My research trip was a whirlwind of interactions with everyone from python owners to nightclub promoters. I kicked it off with a day at a swinger’s convention at a hotel downtown, where waiters in guayaberas served drinks to randy nude couples. Fringe Florida is a book about the state’s unusual and sometimes illicit subcultures. In Miami you didn’t have to dig too deep to find Middle Earth.

But as with any major project, many valuable experiences fall to the floor in shaping the final piece. At the time, I was still exploring the notion of juxtaposing Miami’s 1980s cocaine glory days against its modern party drug scene. My impressions of the earlier period were colored by documentaries such “Cocaine Cowboys” and of course, the Hollywood fictions of “Miami Vice” and “Scarface.” All cast the era as violent, but glamorized by easy money and the hedonistic excesses that go along with it.

In search of remnants, I checked into the Mutiny in Coconut Grove. The Mutiny once served as a party palace for drug lords and home to many who sniffed a daily diet of the white powder that fueled the local economy. Nearly 30 years later the Mutiny had transformed into a sleepy sleek condo-hotel. All that remained of the wilder days were second-hand stories. Tips in blow, coked-up residents lighting $5 bills and then climbing balcony to balcony to escape the smoldering fire.

On a walking tour of pastel Deco South Beach, a fellow tour-goer confided he lived at the Mutiny in the day. A tan fit man in his 60s wearing designer jeans, he spoke of all-night parties and nude women running down his hallway. “It was like living in an upscale brothel,” he said. More important, his former Coconut Grove home was a set for – what else, a handful of “Miami Vice” episodes.

I later cruised by the modern three-story house shrouded by lush palms and live oaks. No Don Johnson loafing around in white linen suits and sockless loafers, just a flock of bright blue peacocks wandering the streets, interlopers from a distant land not unlike me.

I tarried through a long list of drug lore sites, real and Hollywood.
In Bal Harbour I strolled the jetty beside the Harbour House condo tower where cocaine smugglers Jon Roberts and Mickey Munday once put up women who acted as lookouts for law enforcement patrols.

On this bright October day, the white sandy beach was nearly empty and the refurbished condo tower appeared lifeless. A vintage runabout cut through the teal waters of Haulover Cut. I imagined someone behind the condo’s glass eyes watching it through binoculars. The illusion faded when a New York condo owner fishing for snook said he knew nothing of the tower’s infamous history.

Too many of the sites were drive-bys with no opportunity for interaction. The banks of Biscayne Boulevard which once laundered millions; gritty Jones Boat Yard where corrupt police raided a boat loaded with 400 kilos of coke as the crewmen jumped overboard and drowned; luxurious mansions of former kingpins in gated communities beyond reach.

By definition, the site of the “Dadeland Mall Massacre” would be available. Many consider what happened on a sunny afternoon in 1979 the start of Miami’s cocaine turf wars. Two men armed with machine guns jumped out of a panel van and sprayed Crown Liquors with bullets, killing a rival drug kingpin and his bodyguard and injuring the store clerk. After a white-knuckle drive in rush hour traffic, I arrived at Dadeland Mall to discover the liquor store had been swallowed by Saks 5th Avenue during a mall renovation.

Miami’s bad-boy glamour was an illusion cast by Hollywood and revisionist history. The world of Miami’s cocaine titans may have been an oyster, but there was no pearl, only a prickly shell that in short order began to smell foul.
As for the modern club drug scene, in the time I spent inside the velvet-roped hot spots, I found trending drugs that spanned the letters of the alphabet: Special K, X, and G. Not so different than you’d find in a nightclub in any major city. At the time, the most distinctive drug culture revolved around pill mills. I visited one. They sent me to a walk-in MRI clinic down the street.
In hindsight, I’m not sure what I expected to find. The cocaine era was a dark time and one that continues to haunt. My Miami friends say tourists still ask where to score an 8-ball.

It wasn’t until I joined the lunchtime crowd at Mac’s Club Deuce that my disillusionment gave way to an appreciation of what Miami had become. Except for the neon gracing its wall, courtesy of the “Miami Vice” crew, it looks like a set from a Damon Runyan novel. Dark and smoky with the original red laminate serpentine bar, Club Deuce has had few alterations since it opened in 1926. The bar’s real treasure is the spell of friendship it casts. Before I finished a screwdriver, I met everyone.

The longhaired fashion photographer wearing more silver bangles than I thought humanly possible who worked on his laptop to be able to write off his drinks. The young businessman in a starched shirt unbuttoned enough to show a white undershirt. A blustery former cop who ranted about Obama. An Ecuadorian pottery wholesaler who for years in the 1980s wouldn’t leave his home at night much less venture to South Beach — three men with a gun and a machete had mugged him outside a club. “It was extremely dangerous on South Beach,” he said. Now he lived there and wouldn’t dream of moving.

Mac Klein, Club Deuce owner, was 95 when I met him and looked as if he could take a man 20 years younger. He was wearing an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt; his glasses were thick and black. He didn’t talk much, but kept reemerging from the back with memorabilia. The bar’s original menu. A flier for the “Miami Vice” wrap party. A thank-you note from the cast. A dog magazine featuring his champion Doberman pinschers. Sensing my love of dogs, he insisted that I keep the magazine, which I now treasure.

My drug scene exploration may not have turned up the type of fringe I sought for my book, but I have no regrets aside for the credit card debt I racked up. And on any trip, I make a point to duck into Club Deuce and say hello to my friends, whoever they may be that day.

I moved to Miami after returning from my Fulbright Scholar Program in 2002. The same muggy air, car horns, heat that I left in the Philippines greeted me as I walked out the doors of Miami International Airport.

The cab driver spoke to me in Spanish and I understood everything he said, but I was slow to respond. I had spent the last year speaking Tagalog, a language full of Spanish words after 300 years of colonization. When I instinctively replied to him in Tagalog, he just kept on, unfazed, in Spanish.

My job at the University of Miami started right away. For the first year, I lived in Kendall, or “Kendalia” as I liked to refer to it. It took more than an hour in rush-hour traffic to get to and from the Coral Gables campus. In Manila, traveling five miles from Quezon City to Makati had taken an average of two hours each way. Now, instead of getting anxious, I could let go of the frustration and instead spend time listening to the Latin stations, dancing in my car and practicing Spanish.

In 2009, I moved to a neighborhood along Coral Way, a historic urban boulevard that runs through Miami from Brickell Avenue to 37th Avenue. My house had been built in 1939 along with other bungalows and mission revival-style homes. Everyone on my street spoke Spanish almost exclusively.

My casita stood between two houses of the sadme style, and within these houses lived viejas. On the right, there were three widowed sisters — Marta, Olga and Paula. On the left was Elsa, also a soltera. The women were best friends, and I’d see them on the sidewalk in front of my house, sometimes laughing together, sometimes shouting in anger. Right away, they befriended me, a single woman much younger than they were and never married. They called me China even though I told them, “Yo soy Evelina, la Filipina. No soy China.” They laughed at me, calling me China anyway.

Elsa was a small and quiet widow. From afar, I never knew how she was feeling, but face to face, I could see it in her eyes and in the path of her delicate wrinkles. Every day I would notice her standing by the chain-linked fence in her front yard, watching the street, waiting for the mail, and talking to passersby.

One afternoon I brought her a mango from my tree.

I can hold a polite conversation in Spanish, but when it gets malalim — deep — I mix my languages. Sometimes Tagalog comes out when I mean to speak Spanish, or vice versa.

Elsa recounted the story of her life to me at her kitchen table. She had suffered bouts of depression since she came to this country. Never in Cuba, only in this country. She wouldn’t even say it — the United States of America. Solomente en este pais, pero nunca en Cuba. These days she felt nervous constantly. Everyone she loved had died — su mama y papa, su esposo y hermana. Seven years ago, her husband and sister had died months apart. Though she had the abuela sisters, who took her everywhere, and a daughter in Boston, she couldn’t calm her nerves. The noise of her memories crowded her head, kept her up at night.

We sat for a long time. She picked up the mango, smelled it, and handed it to me. “Que rico,” she said.

I told her she needed a novio. She laughed.

When I married last year, Elsa quickly took to my husband, who spoke absolutely no Spanish. They exchanged words each day. She sneaked up behind me one day to tell me my husband was a good man. “Y guapo tambien,” I told her jokingly. Yes, yes, he’s handsome, so be careful, she said, women will try to take him away from you. She gave me a look. I told her I’d be careful. No mujer would come between us. We laughed and then she told me she liked my dress. A moment passed, and she said, “Tu esposo es una buena persona.”

Last month, when my husband and I came home from a trip, nobody was standing at Elsa’s gate. On the fence and the trees nearby, someone had posted “No Parking” signs.

“Something’s wrong,” I told my husband.

“It could be anything,” he said.

For days, the neighborhood was quiet. The abuela sisters were nowhere to be seen.

One day soon after, my husband came home and told me he had found out what happened to Elsa.

“Who told you?” I asked him.

“Olga.”

“What did she say?”

“I don’t know. It was in Spanish. But she was talking, talking, talking and she went like this.” He put his hands together and leaned his head on them with his eyes closed. “And then I said, ‘She died?’ And she said, ‘Sí, sí, sí.’”

Elsa was not the first to pass away since I moved into this casita. There was an old man across the street during my first year. And last year, Marta, one of the abuela sisters, died of a brain tumor. Now Elsa. I like to think the spirit of these viejas are circling the bamboo, the mango and the avocado trees, whistling love songs, blessing us from afar. I like to think they are a part of a Miami that will never die.

They have taught me that you don’t need the right words, or even the same language, as long as you are willing to sit with one another and listen.

Miami will always occupy a special place in my heart. My beloved grandmother spent such a great portion of her life here that the two are now synonymous in my mind. She had impeccable taste, which means Miami is the second-greatest city in the world; of course, our native Petionville, Haiti, comes in first.

My grandmother passed away April 2, 2012. I know she is in a better place now. The nationalist in her wanted to reach eternity via Haiti. Since that was not meant to be, Miami opened its arms – as always. It is where her remains are interred.

With a smile brighter than all the lights on Ocean Drive, my grandmother was the city personified. She wrapped her head in colorful scarves, reminiscent of Miami’s golden age, pulsing with the roar of turquoise and chrome convertibles. She loved the Fontainebleau for its Old World glamor and once-upon-a-time elegance.

My grandmother’s Miami was quite similar to our native country. Many friends gathered on her porch on Sunday afternoons to enjoy lodyans – a form of storytelling drenched in humor.They reminisced and laughed about old times back home. Most of her friends spoke only Creole, even if they had lived in the States for decades.

Her front door stayed open all day – as it did in long-ago Haiti. Restaurants that sold food cooked like back home, if not better, were just around the corner from her house. The grocery stores’ shelves were stocked with the ingredients she used to buy in Haiti’s open-air markets. Miami was her second Haiti. When back home was not accessible – because of various coups d’état and other inconveniences, Miami was her sanctuary.

My grandmother’s last visit to Haiti was in late 2009. She was thrilled to see the house in which she planned to spend what remained of her life. She had spent years sending money for builders to make her house just so. She was ready to move in the fall of 2009.

When she flew home to begin the rest of her life, friends and neighbors received her as though she had never left. Just as they did in Miami, everyone gathered at her house for marathon conversations and tasty food.

But the longer my grandmother stayed in Haiti, the more she pined for “home” – meaning Miami.

Three months after arriving in Haiti, she decided she had lived so long in Miami that perhaps she could not live anywhere else, including her birth country. She flew back to Miami on Jan. 10, 2010.

Two days later, a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, killing hundreds of thousands. She sobbed for the lost lives. I sobbed with her, but took comfort in the fact that she had returned just in time; she might have been among the still-unaccounted-for victims. That would have destroyed me.

As stories poured in about the quake’s aftermath, the utter destruction, the chaotic medical situation, my grandmother wept in silence. Her South Beach smile dimmed. Not even Miami could console her.

She mourned the fact that she could no longer return to her other, sometime home. She mourned the loss of long-ago Haiti – the Haiti that pulsed with turquoise and chrome convertibles, the lush and Miami-green Haiti, the Haiti she knew as a child. She was secretly grateful that her adopted city’s arms were always ready to envelop her. Miami had become her own private Haiti.

Five months before my grandmother passed away, she was admitted to University of Miami hospital. With each passing day, she became more and more frustrated about having to be in a hospital bed. She was accustomed to living life standing up. She detested the hospital gown, and wanted instead to wear her colorful wardrobe that reminded me of the sea, sunshine and coral reefs.

She told the doctors to send her home. By “home” she meant both Miami and Haiti. The intensive care unit was drab. It lacked vibrancy. It lacked life.

My grandmother has been gone two years now. I will always owe Miami a debt of gratitude for opening its arms to welcome my grandmother for as long as she wanted to be here. Whenever I come to the city, I sense her presence in the air. Everything she loved about the city is still here: the Fontainebleau, the banyan trees, the blue-blue water that hems the coast.

And just as my grandmother did when she was alive, I go to stores where only my native language is spoken. I eat Haitian food morning, noon and night. (I’ll admit I love Cuban cuisine just as much.) I visit Libreri Mapou and chat with the friendly owner and customers who cannot get enough of Haitian literature. Each visit makes it clear to me why my grandmother loved Miami so.

Perhaps one day, the city will claim me, too.

Living in Detroit’s bustling Lebanese community in the 1940s was very predictable -unless you were Joe and Mary Thomas, two of Miami’s pioneers from our nation’s largest Lebanese population.

The top priority then was doing everything to help our war effort. Two of Mary’s brothers went overseas, and the youngest died seven months later on the Pacific island of Morotai as part of Gen. MacArthur’s island-hopping campaign toward an attack on Japan.

To this day, I carry a dog-eared article about my uncle George from the “War Page” of the Nov. 20, 1944, Detroit News as a reminder of his ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms.

He was also the person who introduced my mother to my father. Joe’s tool-and-die job at the Hudson auto plant was converted to armament production. He won a glowing commendation from the Navy Department for developing a system to recycle damaged artillery from the field, which enabled him to get needed weapons back on the front much quicker.

After the war, Mary and Joe were married and began raising a family. Mary grew up on the second floor of her father’s grocery store and helped Joe open their own store. Unlike their parents, both from Lebanon, they decided they did not want their children working in the auto plants or the family store.

Upon hearing great things about Miami from their close family friend John Yunis, they headed south in 1955 and first lived in an apartment house he owned across from the Orange Bowl.

They later bought a house nearby on Northwest Third Street. Their oldest children attended Citrus Grove Elementary and Junior High, and ultimately Miami High. Mary’s father had refused to let her take a scholarship to a local college, despite being at the top of her high school class in Detroit. His old-country attitude was that education was a waste of time, especially for women, who should work in the family business.

This great disappointment shaped Mary’s No. 1 life goal: Do everything possible to give her children the maximum possible education. Joe, who briefly attended the University of Detroit but could not afford to continue, agreed.

As a result, one of their greatest accomplishments was that all five of their boys became doctors: two college professors with Ph.D.s, two orthodontists and one optometrist. The total of 16 different undergrad and graduate degrees for their five boys made up for the two college degrees they were not allowed or could not afford to pursue.

Besides raising and educating her five boys, Mary’s second life was dedicated to helping found and develop in 1973 Our Lady of Lebanon Church, which was established in the old Food Fair market on Coral Way. Joe converted the check-out counter to an altar so the first Mass could be held on Dec. 30, 1975.

When the church was struggling to generate income to pay off its mortgage, Mary suggested a weekend festival, as they had in their Detroit church. With their grocer backgrounds, Mary and Joe went to the farmers market to get fresh fruits and vegetables. She then organized a group of women who worked nonstop for a week to make homemade Lebanese food and treats. She was able to convince many local business people and others to make contributions for the fair, including live music.

The first festival in 1978 was a great success, and since then it has expanded to include arts and crafts, folkloric dances, and other fun activities. The 36th annual Lebanese Festival will be held Jan. 25-27, 2013, and it is the top moneymaker for the church. Approximately 5,000 Miamians and visitors enjoy it each year, but few know who the brainchild was behind it.

Mary was also the founder and first president of the Ladies’ Guild at the church in 1974. She continued her work at the church for decades until her health deteriorated.

Among the many accolades she received from the church and the national Maronite Church was the Silver Massabki Award in 1976. It is given to members of the parish “who have contributed extraordinarily of their time, talent and treasure” by the National Apostolate of Maronites.

In March 2011, she was able to attend a special Mass at the church honoring her and other founders.

Meanwhile, Joe became a general contractor and achieved his dream of building the family home on a two-acre mango farm in Pinecrest where Mary, now 91, lives. Joe died a happy man in 1998 on his 84th birthday in his dream house with his five boys and Mary at his side.

If you were to ask him or Mary about their greatest accomplishment, their answer would be very simple: “Five boys, five doctors!”