Late grandfather's 100 pound pumpkin returned to boy after being stolen from porch

NEW YORK CITY -- A man's last gift to his grandson, a 100-pound pumpkin, has been returned with a note after being stolen from a New York porch.

It was returned anonymously Tuesday night while the boy was out with his mother.

Before young Kevin Beckman's grandfather died, he left his grandson the enormous pumpkin. Yet a piece of Pop's legacy went missing when someone stole that pumpkin from Kevin's Lindenhurst front porch in Long Island over the weekend.

"Since that pumpkin's been gone, it hasn't been right," 6-year-old Kevin said. "Because it was my last gift from Pop."

Pop, also known as Thomas Beckman, loved to grow plants in his garden, and before he passed, he recruited Kevin to help him with a very special project. They took pumpkin seeds from a pumpkin Pop picked last year and planted them in May.

Sadly, the 75-year-old grandfather died later that month, but watching the pumpkins grow helped the Beckman's cope with their loss.

"We would go out, we would look at the pumpkins, and we'd see how the pumpkins were progressing," said Deirdre Beckman, Kevin's mother.

Once the healthy-sized pumpkin fully matured, Kevin proudly placed it on the family stoop, and that's where someone stole it between Friday night and Saturday morning. Kevin said he cried when he found out.

Afterward, Kevin's aunt, Ann Marie Pesa, posted a photo of him with the pumpkin on her Facebook page, in an effort to get the pumpkin back. She wrote that the family was offering a $500 reward for the squash's return or information leading to its return.

"It's funny, but it was kind of part of my dad. I feel like everything that my dad planted grew really well this year," Pesa said.

So far, plenty of kindhearted neighbors have brought them new pumpkins, but they're not the same. Kevin said it's more about Pop than the pumpkin.

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