Truthful, Honest
On Palm Sunday of 2025, my earthly father, Ronnie Gene Wilson, passed away.
When I first heard of his passing I didn’t feel anything – no sadness, no crying, nothing. What was wrong with me? I was not sad?
My young adult daughter pointed out, “Mom, you have already mourned him.” She was exactly right. Starting in 2012 and years thereafter, I went through all 5 stages of grief. I did not know at the time that I was mourning the loss of my dad, nor were others around me recognizing it as well. I was experiencing mourning an individual who was not dead, but alive and who had drastically changed. The shock of him telling the family, only hours before it hit the press, that he had been hiding a problem of lying and deception; a life of being a serial thief was the beginning of his being so unrecognizable to me.
Competitive year-round swimming and competitive year-round synchronized swimming during my childhood comprise so many wonderful memories of my amazing dad! My childhood swimming journal that he taught me how to use consisted of newspaper clippings nestled on protective pages in the back highlighted my swimming accomplishments. One of the articles was written in The Journal: Weekly Newspaper of Williamston, Pelzer, Piedmont on August 1, 1984, (page 9-B) and was entitled, “Piedmont Swimmer Places in Events.”
In this article, my dad gives truthful information to the journalist concerning my placement in events. I had entered 9 events in the South Carolina State Long Course Championship held in Charleston, SC. I placed 9th in two events. What parent brags on their kid for placing 9th? In the other 7 events my placement was worse than 9th, but in the other events I swam personal bests by cutting my time from the last time I swam that event in a swim meet, which is noted in the article. The article then focused on my swimming routine, which consisted of morning and afternoon workouts, which I can remember being so grueling. That was my dad, there was no need to lie and deceive. Tell the truth and show the climb for moving towards improvement. That was what he drilled into me as a kid!
After losing him in 2012, I visited him twice early in his prison sentence and realized that he was not the same person that I knew him to be.
The shock of him having a secret life, coupled with how he responded through all of the wreckage that he caused in so many peoples’ lives was so disheartening to see as his daughter, especially on the jailhouse interview that he gave while imprisoned: https://www.wyff4.com/article/jailhouse-interview-with-convicted-ponzi-scheme-mastermind/6804075
For years I was estranged from Ron, and I decided to write him during COVID (which was my last communication with him) to see if there had been any change – a bouncing back into his relationship with our Heavenly Father, the dad that I knew and loved, but still there was no change. How does one know if a person has gotten back on track with Jesus?
Ask yourself two questions:
1. How do they treat their family?
Your relationship with Jesus begins with how you treat your earthly family and spiritual family. A person’s actions towards these two types of families speak volumes of how their invisible relationship is with Jesus. After studying Paul’s Prison Letters in the Bible (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, & Philemon), I noticed the Apostle Paul’s treatment of his spiritual family. He either initiated letter writing or responded to a church member with gratitude who visited him in prison. All of those years that my earthly father was in prison, he never initiated letter writing to me or my kids.
2. How do they communicate with you?
Also, I noticed the Apostle Paul’s communication with his spiritual family was centered on them and the struggles they were going through, how he was helping them find a solution to their problems. During my two prison visits with him, my earthly father was not concerned about the struggles I was navigating because of his secret life and the losses that accompanied the fallout.
It is so important that we bounce back into our relationship with Jesus. We can read in God’s Word of the individuals who did just this. We can read about their climb towards improvement, a very important trait that my earthly father instilled into me as a childhood swimmer.