Latest / Beyond the Arc: Reflections on Resilience, Identity, & Life Podcast / He Made Good on His Life

Transcript

He Made Good on His Life · Beyond the Arc: Reflections on Resilience, Identity, & Life Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Today I want to tell you about a man I never met.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: His name was Frank Promesa,
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: and after losing part of his hand,
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: and with it,
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: his chance to play professional baseball,
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Frank spent the next 72 years proving that a dream can end without ending a life.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I learned Frank's story from his daughter, Amy.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: We sat comfortably in a booth at the local Panera Bread, sharing a late lunch.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was kind of ironic that we both shared the same first name,
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Amy Permisa and I connected through my speaking and writing.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: She was especially drawn to my latest book,
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Everyday Resilience,
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: where I write about identity, grief, and the relentless pursuit of never giving up.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: But that afternoon wasn't really about either one of us.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was about Frank.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Frank Permisa was not an ordinary man.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: He was an extraordinary man living an ordinary life.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm grateful his daughter trusted me enough to tell his story
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: and gave me permission to share it with you.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like so many people who dared to dream,
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Frank imagined a life like his older brother, John,
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: who played eight years of professional baseball for the Cincinnati Reds and
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: the Chicago Cubs.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And for all of John's success, most people said Frank was even more talented at baseball.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Frank, in his humble and modest way, always said John was the better athlete.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: After graduating from Wheeling Central Catholic High School,
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Frank was drafted to play professional baseball.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: He was on his way.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then,
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: a little over a month before he was supposed to join the team,
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Frank was working in the steel mill when a press fell on his right hand.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: It crushed his fingers and part of his hand.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Frank was rushed to the hospital.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: His sister Betty, who was studying to become a nurse, met him in the emergency room.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Frank's parents didn't have a car,
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: and according to Amy, his father was in shock after learning about the accident.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Betty's nursing background came in extremely handy that day.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: The surgeon told her they needed permission to amputate Frank's hand at the wrist.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can cut the rest of his fingers off and cut off part of his hand,
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: but leave the thumb, he will make use of it.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And even though doctors back then didn't take kindly to being challenged
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: for some reason, they listened to Betty.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: On that day in 1950,
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: they removed Frank's fingers and part of his hand,
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: and with them went a dream he had spent years earning the opportunity to pursue.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: When Amy first told me her father's story, I immediately became curious about something.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: How did he recover?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Not only from losing part of a limb,
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: but from losing a life-changing opportunity that very few people ever get the chance
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: to experience.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't experienced the loss of a limb,
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: but I have experienced the complete disruption of my life.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: I know what it's like to dare to dream and then have your life completely blown up
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: with very little warning.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I asked Amy, how did your dad handle this devastation?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Frank's father, known as Pap, was a coal miner.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: He was tough and resilient himself,
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: a trait that seems to have permeated generations of the Promesa family.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Amy answered, Pap told my dad you have two choices.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, you can lay down and die, or number two, you can make good of yourself.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: There was no pity party for Frank,
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: and throughout his life he embraced the notion that no one should feel sorry
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: for him.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: As someone who speaks and writes about resilience,
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't help but recognize in Frank the same principles I've come to describe
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: through my resilience CAP framework.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Continue, adapt, perspective.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Frank continued.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: He enrolled at West Liberty and completed two years before deciding college wasn't for him.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: He adapted.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: He learned how to play baseball with his left hand and played for the Warwood Reds.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps most remarkably, he found perspective.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: People ask him on multiple occasions, were you mad at the world?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Frank would reply, why be mad at the world?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the world's fault.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was an accident.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's something about that answer that stays with me
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: because Frank had every reason to be angry,
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: but instead he did exactly what Pap had offered as the alternative.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: He made good on his life.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: He married his sweetheart, Marilyn, and they had three children.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: According to Amy, Frank treated Marilyn like a queen.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Frank lived his life as a highly principled man.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: My dad had high morals, was positive, competitive, and always for the underdog, Amy told me.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Then she said something even more telling.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: If everyone treated spouses like my dad, there would be no problems.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Frank coached baseball for years,
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: he learned how to play golf, and he regularly beat guys with two hands.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: His message to them was pretty simple.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: You guys can't beat a one-handed golfer.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Frank was pretty proud of that fact.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And frankly, I think he earned the right to be.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: I asked Amy where she saw her dad in her own life.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: His positivity and competitiveness, she replied.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: But after getting to know Amy a little better, I could see more than that.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: I could see his morals, his values, and his incredible resilience.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Frank's philosophy was something of a masterclass in resilience.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: He believed that regardless of what was thrown at you, you could succeed.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: There was always a solution to a problem,
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: although sometimes you had to look pretty hard to find it.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: He believed in giving something your all or not doing it at all.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: He often said the cream is always going to rise to the top.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: As I sat there listening to Amy,
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: I told her,
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: I really wish I could have met your father,
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: but his spirit definitely lives on in you.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: We both had tears in our eyes.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was a moment of shared grief.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Frank once told his family, when I'm 90, I'll close my eyes.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Frank turned 90 years old on February 1st, 2022.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: He died six days later, February 7th.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Marilyn told her family she would die within a year of Frank.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: She died the following year in 2023.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Frank's story is an extraordinary story of resilience,
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: acceptance, faith,
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: and the relentless proof that even when life hands us incredibly difficult blows,
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: if we persist, our lives can still be full despite the obstacles we face.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: I do wish I'd met Frank,
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: but after hearing his story,
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: I see that his life and legacy live on in his daughter Amy and
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: from everything she shared with me and his grandson Owen.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's actually how Amy and I first connected.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Owen, who is nine years old as I'm recording this, is an avid baseball fan.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: He wants to be like his pap.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I happen to have a collection of baseball cards from the 1970s that I kept
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: since I was a kid.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: They needed a home.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: They found Owen.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Recently, Owen's mom, Brittany, Amy's daughter, took him to a Chicago Cubs game.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Owen looked out at the field and asked,
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: do you think that's the same home plate Uncle John played with?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: That question gave me chills.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's part of the proof that the people we love don't simply disappear.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: They live in the stories we tell,
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: the things we pass down,
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: The baseball cards one person kept for decades that somehow find their way into
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: the hands of a nine-year-old boy.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: The questions children ask about people they never had the chance to know.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the connections we make with one another, often when we least expect them.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Amy and I ended our conversation a little choked up.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Two daughters sitting in a Panera Bread missing our parents,
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: missing their love,
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: and understanding each other's grief without having to explain very much at all.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: I told Amy something that day that remains true.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still driving my way through grief.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just not doing it literally anymore.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: I am Amy Gamble, and this is Beyond the Arc.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.