Four years ago, Sunday, we laid to rest my God-Mother, Rita. Losing Rita was one of the hardest things my family had to go through. Rita became sick in the fall of 2012. She had a rare blood disease called aplastic anemia. Aplastic anemia is kind of like Leukemia except not cancer. This disease caused Rita to get blood transfusions once a week. She was on a ton of medication and wasn’t getting better. Finally, something changed and she was better. This was in the spring of 2013. That summer I went to live with her and our friend Mary. It was a great summer! I worked a ton but whenever I was home we gotto swim in the pool, plant flowers in the garden, and cook a lot of pie. (For those of you who don’t know, Rita is the one who taught me how to cook pie!) By August 2013 though, Rita’s disease had come back. This time there seemed to be an easy fix, a bone marrow transplant! We were all super optimistic that this would work. However, Rita never made it to this point before she became really sick and was put on life support. At this point Rita had been on life support 3 other times in my life so I really thought that she would survive this one, too. But when I got the call at college that this was it and that I needed to come say goodbye, my whole world changed.
Rita was always in my life. She went to middle school, high school, and college with my father. She was my mom’s college roommate. She was in a worship group with my parents for years. (They were always in the same church, supported the same missionaries and ministries.) She was there for all of our births. She even lived with us a couple of times. Rita taught me how to cook, sing, read music, inspired my love of music, and most importantly, taught me what it meant to be a good, Godly, woman. Rita always loved to tell this story about me, when I was an infant she was babysitting me and had fallen asleep with me on her chest. When she woke up she forgot that I was on her chest and it startled her and she almost dropped me onto the floor! (So, if you ever wonder what wrong with me, we can just blame Rita!) Me, living with her that last summer was such a blessing because I was able to continue to add to all of my good memories I have with her. Rita never married so my siblings and I were like her own children. Rita also loved taking adventures and traveling. Rita has taken Nate and me to Orlando, FL twice. Took Dan and Bekah once as well as took Bekah to Europe! She went on countless adventures, traveled to NYC, Washington DC, as well as so many other places.
When Rita passed away she left my siblings and I some money. This was completely unexpected, I didn’t even know I was in her will! But with some of this money we decided to take a family vacation to Europe. See, my parents weren’t in Rita’s will because we all assumed they would die around the same time so there would be no point in including them in, so instead she included us. But the only reason Rita was in our lives was because of my parents. So, we decided to honor Rita’s memory and go on our own family adventure! We spent 16 days in Europe, traveling to England, France, Germany, and Italy. It was an amazing time and something my family would have never done if it wasn’t for Rita. I was also able to go to Ireland with Marching Mizzou with some of the money Rita left me.
So, you all are probably wondering why I am writing a blog about Rita. Well with some of the money Rita left me I could either use it for grad school or missions. Originally, I was going to use it for grad school and I tried that, but Jesus had other plans. After failing out of grad school and getting accepted to the Race, I very quickly had to raise $10,000. After praying about it I decided that a good use of Rita’s money would be to donate it to my Race! Rita was always in the church, either leading a worship session, teaching Sunday school, or just being in the presence of God. For most of Rita’s funeral all anyone kept saying about her was how now that she was in heaven, God was saying to her “Well done good and faithful servant.” They also talked about how pure of a life Rita lived. I remember sitting there during her funeral thinking about what an honor it would be to have people saying the same thing at my funeral one day. So, it is a great honor to be able to travel the world and do a great work for the kingdom with Rita’s money. I know that she would be very proud of me.
So, this one is to you, Rita mom!! I love you and miss you so much. Thank you for the impact you had on my life and our family!! Because I knew you, I have been changed for good…
