Ronald Martin Prestwood
1941-2025
After losing patience and faith that his wife will ever let my version of his obituary be published, I decided to make sure the truth about Ron’s life could be known by all. Ron was a private person who made many mistakes in his life, but he owned them, albeit privately, and re-earned my trust decades after he had lost it. He was the father whose name was on my birth certificate, who raised me, and never stopped loving me, even when we stopped speaking. He was the father of four other children, a lifetime older than me, who experienced shades of the same loss and frustration and erasure I did, but had less closure before he was gone. Their existence was omitted from our grandparents’ obituaries, but they were never forgotten by Ron, and they aren’t forgotten by me. If other obituaries are ever printed, they will mention the faith that guided him strongly in his last couple decades. They’ll praise his good deeds to others. These are important, but so is the foundation on which they are laid. This is his obituary as I knew him, with a few gaps filled in by his other children who knew him first.