A Most Incredible Witness

By Emily L. Pittsford

On September 1, 2010, Timothy Pittsford chased a man who had just hit and killed a woman in a crosswalk. Chasing a Prius in his Eclipse through the streets of San Francisco was the biggest event of his life. Little did he know that days later he would also be dead. Yet being a witness was all part of a bigger plan. As the young man who hit the woman saw Tim in his rear view mirror, God was in Tims. Learn how Tims mother, Emily, deals with losing her son and how her faith is only strengthened by what God has done in her life, including mending her relationship with her daughter.

This manuscript chronicles the authors journey through grief to ultimate healing after suffering the loss of her son, every parents nightmare. With utmost honesty and courage, the author takes the reader through her shock, sorrow, anger, and confusion, along with sharing her familys story prior to and after her sons death. Holding nothing back, the author engages with the reader and maintains that connection throughout the manuscript. And through it all, her strong, deep faith in God is palpable and is her powerful testimony today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Aug 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781512705706

Emily L. Pittsford

While Emily is a first-time author, she was born to write this book. This woman shares from the depths of her soul, and she will make you feel as though you could sit down for a cup of tea with her and share your struggles. She and her husband, Bill, have been married for thirty-six years and are the parents of Leanne Pittsford. They live in Southern California and are active at Foothills Christian Church in El Cajon, California.

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Copyright © 2015 Emily L. Pittsford.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Interior and Back Cover Graphics/Art Credit to Don DeMars Photography.

Cover photo/Art credit to Leanne Pittsford.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-0571-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-0572-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-0570-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015912156

WestBow Press rev. date: 08/19/2015

Contents

Dedication

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 Front Row Seats

Chapter 2 The Back Story

Chapter 3 The Witness Part of the Story

Chapter 4 Never Sitting Still

Chapter 5 Back Home

Chapter 6 September 18: The Funeral

Chapter 7 September 19: And So He Was Buried

Chapter 8 September 22: The Incredible Part of the Story

Chapter 9 Coming Up Roses

Chapter 10 Aiming for the New Normal

Chapter 11 Cause of Death

Chapter 12 Leaving the Desert…Our Personal Exodus

Chapter 13 To Grieve or Not to Grieve

Chapter 14 Fifty-Two Weeks Today

Chapter 15 Letting Go of Plan A

Chapter 16 A Tribute to Joyce Lau

Chapter 17 Tim’s Eulogy

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this book to my daughter, Leanne. You are my firstborn and my little girl. Our time together has not come without challenges. Yet because of that, you have been my best teacher. You’ve taken me to places I thought I could never go. And for that, I am truly thankful. You are my sunshine, and I love you to the moon and back.

Love,

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Foreword

If I may share with you one of the things I know in life, it’s that there’s always more to the story. So while I don’t think I could’ve been more transparent, I have left some obvious details out. Out of respect for our daughter, we’re leaving the reason for the conflict out. That, I hope, will be saved for another book. I hope you enjoy reading this story that never ceases to amaze me.

Acknowledgments

On the day Tim’s body was found, God opened up my heart, just so I could take in all the love that was shown to myself and our family while we grieved. I give thanks to those who stepped up and carried us through. My heart has a special place for all of you.

Blessed are those that mourn, for you will be comforted~ Matthew 5:4 KJV. And you all were our comforters.

Chapter 1

Front Row Seats

On September 19, 2010, my husband, Bill, and our daughter, Leanne, and I sat in the front row, the one reserved for close family. We sat and looked at the beautiful silver box that held the twenty-eight-year-old body of my beautiful son. The boy I had birthed and held to my breast was now in a box, waiting to be buried. This is a parent’s worst nightmare, and I was living it.

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After exchanging pleasantries, I walked up the hill to the car. And at the same time, began an uphill journey in figuring out the whys and hows on the road to healing. I had just done the impossible; I had buried my child.

We lived two-and-a-half hours away from the cemetery in Bonita, a suburb of San Diego, where we were from. We had made the journey many times on holidays and important events. Sometimes a round trip in one day. But today the journey was incredibly long. My brain was on fire. I usually had a hard time focusing, but on this day, focusing was almost impossible. My son’s death still made little sense. At this point, all we knew was that he was dead.

My son, Timothy Robert, was found dead in his bed on September 7, 2010, with no visible signs of death other than a few drops of blood on his pillow. What had killed him? An aneurysm? A suicide? There hadn’t been any note with the body, but not everyone leaves one. Could the cause of death have been drugs? He hadn’t used drugs, but he had some leftover pain medication from a knee surgery. Could his death have been from a mixture of drugs and alcohol? Maybe he’d been depressed and had mixed the two. Or had he taken a pill to sleep after having had a glass of wine?

These questions shot through my head like lightning bolts in a storm. But in the midst of this thunderstorm in my head, I kept thinking, none of this really matters. It only comes down to one thing. Do I trust God with my children?

We don’t look good on paper, I thought. I now have a child in the ground and one child who has challenged us since … well, since she was little. Yes, Lord, I trust you, I kept saying. While the words were forced and short lived I knew they were the right ones that would get me through this. As the whirlwind of thoughts started up again with intermediate moments of peace speckled with, Where did we go so wrong?

In May 2000, when Tim graduated from high school, we sat in the front row, reserved for the close family of the valedictorians. Watching my son speak to his class was incredible. My motherly pride was at its peak. After all, I had prepared for this. While pregnant with Tim, I had worn the proverbial maternity shirt that read Class of 2000, with an arrow pointing toward my swollen belly. Yeap, we deserved to be sitting in the front row.

My husband had had a rough childhood and tried to escape through writing stories and drawing. He signed his work Timothy Jacobs, so from the get-go, he told me he wanted a son and desired to give him that name. However, I changed the plan at the last minute, choosing to honor my father, Robert, and thus making our son’s full name Timothy Robert. But I was so pleased to give my husband the son he’d always wanted. So when they called his name, his name reverberated throughout the arena and into my heart, and time stood still as he grabbed his diploma.

Yep, we’d made it. We’d broken the chain, as many talk show hosts say. We’d dealt with our dysfunction in therapy. The kids were saved and chose to be baptized at our local Christian church. I was a leader in an international Bible study. Leanne had a nice boyfriend and was attending a four-year university. And oh, did I mention? She’d also graduated as a valedictorian. Both she and Tim had earned a 4.0 GPA or higher. Tim had also received a scholarship from the Presidential Scholarship Program at Long Beach State University. My husband was the athletic director at the high school the kids had attended, and our family was loved and well respected.

Yep, we’d made it out of the darkness. We were living an incredible Plan A.

Or so I’d thought.

Chapter 2

The Back Story

Bill and I were raised in a suburb of San Diego, one of the best places on earth, in my opinion. Both of our fathers were in the navy. While Bill was young, his father abandoned his family of four children when he divorced Bill’s mother. My father was physically present, but I had my own issues to deal with. Bill went into the air force during Vietnam and then earned a degree in physical education at San Diego State in 1976. I went to a community college for a few semesters. I met Bill during this time at the navy Chief’s Club, where we both worked. He was a bartender and I was a bus girl. We were married one year later.

When I was twenty-two we had Leanne and moved to Ramona, a small town an hour away from where we grew up. Bill had been recruited to coach boys’ varsity soccer at the local high school, which came with a teaching position at