The Dad I Really Never Knew

Edward Ila Permenter was born, one in a set of twin boys, on a hot July day in 1932. He and his brother John joined elder brother Kenny. Growing up on a farm didn’t leave him much time for family or friends. He rode ponies as a kid, and went off to serve in the air force as a young man of twenty.

He met Jacki Stoneburg in San Antonio, Texas when she visited her sister, serving in the Women’s Air Force Band. She was the opposite of him, her dark tresses and brown eyes contrasting with his blond hair and blue eyes, she was from the north, he from the south. Nevertheless it was total, mesmerized love at a moment’s glance. They dated and then he spent hours on the phone talking to her after she went home. Before he could think, the words “Will you marry me?” slipped out and he was on a plane bound for Seattle.

Married in 1955, he tried to make a go of his sales career, and was hardly home. He and Jacki became new parents and he felt like a juggler , traveling, being a husband, and a new dad. Because of struggling times, he moved his young family to Montana, hoping to find new pastures for his business. One day, coming home from a long, discouraging pharmaceutical sales trip, he met his in-laws and bride of five years at the front door. Jacki was departing, taking their young daughter with her and leaving Ila holding loose pieces to a complicated puzzle.

Wandering between his job, visitations with his daughter, and trying to put his life together again, Ila gave up and went back home to the south. He heard whispers of Jacki marrying again and let her new man adopt his child, hoping to give her a life with a Dad close to home. Then he met Bess, a sweet southern girl, and was wed again, determined not to let his past mistakes haunt him. They were happy, joyfully raising two children of their own, another girl, who often reminded him of his first born, and a son whom he was proud of.

After the death of an adopted father, the eldest child wondered if the rumors she heard were true. Was her birth father an angry man full of rage? Did he truly beat her when she was only two? The words flew around her, swirling into ever morphing accusations,, until no one knew for sure what was truth and what was fantasy. She had to find out. His name and area of the country he lived in were never kept secret from her. She knew he belonged to the south. With a determination, the decision to locate her biological father was made. Looking through old pictures of a bygone wedding, a page appeared, the guest list for the big announcement so many years ago. Finding names that were related to the father, phone numbers were attained through a city phone book. With apprehension and speculation, the digits finally located.

Questions assailed her, making decisions complicated and confusing. Did he remember her? Did he want to hear from her? Was he married? Did he ever tell his present wife about his first marriage and a daughter he only knew by name? Agonizing, heart pounding, she dialed a number and waited.

A voice, young like her own answered, saying he wasn’t home and could she take a message? “No.” the now adult child replied. She bided her time. Dialing again, a second female, the intonations soft and quietly spoken, telling her to wait. A man’s voice, full of wonder at the passage of time. A father and daughter, separated by decades and distance, broken and now united.

Wings of a plane send the daughter flying across the country to faces strange, yet familiar. A sister rejects her, a brother opens his arms and his heart to her, a father, a woman, a family.

More choices made, lives changed forever, shattered dreams unfulfilled. Vows broken and a father who chose to ignore. A daughter who grieved for broken promises and had to choose a different way. A love distant and rejected, a life full of mourning.

October 10, 2008, a father dies, a brother calls. Two people thrown together by blood of long ago. Feeling their way, unsure of a direction, a silent phone call away.

In memory of Edward Ila Permenter 1932 - 2008