From weaving to walking, Valdosta man experiences journey of healing and hope

Walking past a booth filled with hand-woven, multicolored rugs at the Cochran Country Fest, you’d never guess that those products led to the recovery of a man who had once thought his life was over.

After having a kidney transplant that led to a series of strokes, Ron Wilderman thought there were things he’d never do again. His handwriting would never be the same, holding utensils steady while eating was impossible, and he had trouble walking without assistance.  

Then, he learned about weaving.

“We began to figure out what therapies we could do for him, and God showed me a little video of somebody weaving,” his wife, Addie Wilderman said. “I showed it to Ron, and his eyes lit up. He had not had any interest in anything.”

Weaving is a method of producing fabric in which thread is moved horizontally between vertical threads held taut by a loom. The Wildermans mostly make small rugs using scrap fabric. 

This art, they said, helped Ron regain his previous ability to perform cognitive and psychomotor skills.

“It helped me get my cognitive skills back online, which are great today compared to what they were when it all happened,” he said. “I do have a powered chair, but it’s not getting used much. It kind of stays in the garage.”

“It’s interesting because he couldn’t even walk until he began to do the weaving,” Addie added. “That coordination is what came back. That pathway reformed in his brain.”

Each year, the two of them sell those rugs at the Hahira Honey Bee Festival, but this year’s festival was canceled due to damage caused by Hurricane Helene earlier this month. 

The Wildermans are no stranger to hurricanes or the devastation they cause. Shortly after Ron was receiving intense treatment at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville they were forced to evacuate their home in Panama City with their granddaughter before Hurricane Michael. 

“We got her just in time and left, and 12 hours later, Hurricane Michael destroyed our home,” Addie said. “We were in Jacksonville at that point, living in hotels.”

They eventually moved to Valdosta, but that meant the Mayo Clinic wasn’t accessible to them anymore, which led to Addie looking for alternative therapies for her husband. 

They attended last week’s Cochran Country Fest thanks to help from folks at a local church, House of Grace. They got the Wildermans set up with a space at the festival and gave them somewhere to stay. 

“When we come to a festival like this, as you can see, it gives him a chance to walk around and talk to people, because he’s very outgoing,” Addie said as her husband mingled with folks at neighboring booths. “When you’re just sitting at home because you have health issues, you don’t get to do this very often. He doesn’t work anymore.”

The money from their art doesn’t go toward medical expenses. Instead, they use their earnings from this annual festival to give back to their community.

One organization they help out is the Lowndes Associated Ministries to People (LAMP) homeless shelter in Valdosta.  

“We love to cook. I’m a bread baker,” she said. “Once a week, we bake bread and take it to LAMP, and they feed anywhere from 100-to-225 people per day. We get to bless them with bread.”

They also make meals for the local fire department and police department. After Helene, they said they worked with the Red Cross to serve nearly 1,000 meals in two days. 

“It’s what we do,” Ron said. “If there’s somebody who needs a meal, we’d be more than happy to make it and take it to them. We have provision.”

That desire to give back, in part, is to show thanks after the Wildermans say God stepped in to get Ron through his days in the hospital when he was on his “deathbed.”

After he developed cytomegalovirus (CMV) from the kidney transplant in 2018, he was in a hospital in Panama City for 10 days, where they told him they couldn’t do anything for him. CMV is a dangerous virus that can cause infections 

Addie called the Mayo Clinic, and they told them their doctors would “take care of it.”

“And they did,” Ron said. “I spent 30 days in that hospital, and they got me back on board.”

God never turned his back on their family, Ron said, throughout his treatment and therapy processes — both at Mayo and the weaving with Addie. Even so, what got them through everything was their community. 

“[God] makes sure it all happens, he’s always been there,” he said. “A lot of the members of the church, you know, they’ve all made a difference…You gotta have somebody come on behind you once in a while to give you that swift kick in the backside.”