Provided by Miriam 

My very very dear Rita,

 If you can talk to me through the words and music in your funeral, I know I can talk to you.  

I want to thank you for all that you have done for me.  How you were totally there, and a rock when things at times were really tough.  You were 100% reliable and as a young family we felt enormously welcomed and absorbed into your house and your family particularly when we stayed with you for a while following the birth of Kezia.  We shared so much fun over many years and I loved and was inspired by your approach to life.  You lived a life in synchrony with not just ideas, but words and actions that matched.

I am so glad that you never had to leave your house with all its cherished memories and that you continued to see life as a challenge – the cross-trainer was a fabulous idea!  You really died in active service and that is how you would have chosen it.

I will miss you enormously, but know that your legacy lives on in the wonderful family you have and were so proud of, and the way that you have touched so many lives.

You will always remain an inspiration to me and I hope that by the time it is my turn to move on upwards, I will have been able to be of use to at least one person in the way that you were to me.

With gratitude and love,

 Miriam