Rita TIOPIRA Obituary

Rita - what can I say except you are unforgettable.
Dwayne and I will miss your humour, sister-wife (IYKYK)
Rest in eternal love Your Highness

Dear Bernie, Basil and Caroline condolences on the passing of Rita. Arohanui x

I first met Rita when I moved into the OA space 10+ years ago. She made a impression on me with her vibrant personality. You could never forget her once you met her. I kept in touch with her over the years through the phone and email when I needed information and advice about work matters. Once we finished the work part we always had a laugh about things life, family and stupid things we had done. I will always remember her with love. Please accept my heartfelt condolences for the loss of your beautiful treasure she will be missed

Rita i will miss you a lot, you will always be a very, very special lady to me. I couldn't ever thankyou enough for everything you did for me. Could talk to you about anything and you always gave the best advice, best hugs that would make any bad day better. I wish I could sit at your table with you just once more and enjoy a cup of tea and the lovely company..
To June, Humarie, Johnnyboy and James my biggest condolences ever my heart breaks for you all, you guys had an amazing mum and an amazing Nan to her mokos..I send all my love to you all. Fly high Rita ill forever keep your memory in my heart and remember you for the amazing woman you were, am so lucky and greatful Rita was apart of my life.
Love to you all

To Whaea Rita's Whanau, I am so deeply sorry for your loss. There are no words that can truly ease the pain of losing someone as special as Her Highness, The Fabulous Rita Tiopira.
I hope you can feel the love, support, and compassion surrounding you from across the world during this incredibly difficult time.
Ritz was more than a friend to me-she was my soul sister. We share a love of sarcasm, dark and inappropriate humour, random thoughts, travel dreams, thirst for knowledge, movies, trivia, and awesome music (except Ritz never did come around to loving Linkin Park). Rita was the June Gemini mirror to my May Gemini soul. A few of you are also Gemini, and I know you felt that twinsie energy that Rita had bursting from her. I hope you feel it still xo
Whaea Rita brought light, warmth, and meaning into my life, and I will cherish her forever. Her kindness, selflessness, and beautiful spirit touches everyone lucky enough to know her, and Ritz resilience and strength are admirable beyond words. I feel so grateful to have known her, to have loved her, and to have been loved by her.

Please know that Rita's memory will continue to live on through the love she gave, the laughter she shared, and the lives she changed.

My heart is with you all. With deepest sympathy and love,
Mara

My sincere condolences to Rita's family. I had the pleasure of working with her. Truly appreciate her willingness to help and answer work queries with a smile, her self deprecating humour and many a shared joke. Rita will be missed.

Grandparent of Araia Tiopira-Dorward so although we didn't meet often the times we did share with Rita were, and still are, memorable. Heartfelt sympathy to Rita's family.

Please accept my heartfelt condolences and sending aroha to Rita's whanau at this time. Rita was a special wahine. It was an honour to have worked with her. She had mana and a strong sense of family which touched many. May your spirit be free now Rita. Moi mai ra e hoa.

Our dearest Rizz, thank you for the laughs and the the sturdy shoulder. You were always there for sanity check ins and to translate one of our bosses requests. You dont know how supportive you really were to me and I enjoyed our conversations so much, we would gas bag then didn't know where the hour had gone. We would talk bout all the important stuff then answer the 1 work question we had. Nothing was ever a hassle, you would just get onto things no complaints. I will miss you dearly beautiful friend. It was a pleasure to have known you.
Moe mai ra

To the whanau, no words can express i am sure the mamae you may all be feeling. My condolences and deepest sympathy to you all. Arohanui
Juanita

I am heartbroken by the loss of our friend Rita. We worked together for many years, and always someone I could talk to . Rita has a rare way of making people feel at ease.

From StudyLink to TOA and beyond, Rita was generous with her time, her advice and heart.

It is hard to believe she is gone. I will miss her deeply and will carry her kindness with me always. Thank you Rita.

To her whanau, who she was so dedicated to - thank you for sharing your mum and nan with us.

Arohanui ki a koe

Saddened to hear of Rita's passing. To the family our deepest sympathies for your loss of a loving mother and grandmother. A woman full of Arohanui and Manaakitanga - now at Peace.

I feel so lucky that I got to give Rita a big hug last year when I bumped into her and her beautiful granddaughter at the supermarket. If I had know it would be the last hug, I would have hugged her even tighter. Such an amazing and beautiful woman. Sending lots of love and strength to her whanau.

I am so sorry, I know how tough it is when we lose a loved one.
I want to share here just how special and dear to us Rita is. I have added messages below from myself and those closest to Rita from her immediate team at MSD(TOA) - everyone loved her.
There are a number away right now including those overseas - I know they would have also wanted to add to these.

I remember Rita first joining our analyst team. It was post a structural review around 2015. Rita had elected to take on an Operations Analyst role, she really did not have much experience for that sort of work ("what´s excel?") and was full of self-doubt. One of the first things I did was to arrange for several people in National Office in Wellington to spend a few days helping Rita `get up to speed´. She missed her flights. I then noticed on our intranet, where you can describe how to pronounce your name phonetically, Rita had added `your highness´. I did wonder what I have been landed with here.
So, a shaky beginning but I am proud of Rita. She worked so hard and was so brave and determined to pick up the skills needed for her role. She was a very harsh self-critic, and I was always having to remind her how far she had come and to look at how integral she now was to the area she supported. I am not sure she ever accepted just how good she was.
I loved what she brought to our team. Rita is very selfless, always fiercely independent, very reluctant to accept support, but always supportive of others. One of the first to put her hand up to help out when we needed it most. But beware too, the BS monitor was well tuned, and she would call it out.
It was the lighter things she added which are so important as well. Her humour, mischievousness, her laugh- that twinkle. Rita´s area of expertise for our team quiz became the music questions - she did not just answer the question she sang the song too- "take it away Rita" we loved that. I can hear her sayings now too "it´s all about me, always about me", "in StudyLink", ...
Our catch ups were long. I generally allow up to 30 minutes for these. Each with Rita was guaranteed to be over an hour, I think the longest was 1hr 45mins. She could talk! We would cover all sorts, health, politics, family, feelings. The important things of life and sometimes even work, but as I said to Rita just after Christmas in our last `catch up´, I cherished those, they kept me sane, and I consider not one of those minutes wasted.
Personally, we became very close, not just work colleagues, but friends. I will miss Rita and remember her very dearly.
Michael O´Connor

Rita would often call me and say, "this will only take 5 minutes", 40 minutes later we were chatting about something while she listened to my stories while telling her own. I loved Rita´s want to keep learning even though she had been doing the role for a long time. I have learnt so much from her and will miss her so much! Our team will get a lot less fabulous without her. Rita was a wonderful soul, and she will be deeply missed.
I am so sorry for your loss and send you strength and love to get through this tough time.
Anchita Sharma

The first time I met Rita we were off on a flight to Wellington (all the Operations Analysts across the teams) and we ended up sitting next to each other. She immediately became comfort to me with her easy laugh and been there done that energy. There are not many people I immediately feel safe around however she definitely is one of them. A genuine mother/nana hen. We would book "short" catch ups (for her to share some wisdom) which would run way past time and often were spent talking about family.
I will miss having her as an ally, a friend, a role model, and it will not feel as warm without Rita being around.
Anna Verstappen

Ka tangi matou i nga roimata o te pouri nui.

Kua ngaro to tatou hoa, to tatou hoa i manaaki i a tatou, i awhi ia tatou, i awhina ia tatou.
To matou hoa nana matou i kata, i kata tahi me matou.
To matou hoa i korero i te wa kaore matou i korero.
Ko to maatau hoa "he mea katoa" me te tika.

Ka haere ia ki te po, ki te whenua, ki ona tupuna, i runga i te rangimarie me te aroha.

He whetu ia i te rangi inaianei.

We cry tears of great sorrow.

Our friend is gone, our friend who cared for us, hugged us, and helped us.
Our friend who made us laugh and laughed with us.
Our friend who spoke when we didn't.
Our friend who "was everything" and was right.

She goes to the night, to the earth, to her ancestors, in peace and love.

She is now a star in the sky.
Delia Kauri

To Rita´s Family
So sorry for your loss, it is always too soon.
Rita meant the world to me. She was a dear friend and colleague. She was so kind to me always and used to listen to me prattle on about life and always with that cheeky smile she had would reply "What can you do aye"
She helped me so many times I cannot recall. I will miss her along with you and my thoughts and prayers go out to you all.
RIP Rita you mattered.
David McCall

Rita was the best! She was kind to me from the moment I met her, and that kindness showed in so many ways. During our team days, she always checked in to make sure I was okay, it meant more than she probably ever knew. I will miss her witty sense of humour and her warm smile. She will be deeply missed, and I am so grateful to have known her. My thoughts and heartfelt condolences are with her family. Until we see each other again, goodbye my beautiful friend
Louisa Inu

There´s not really words, Rita will be greatly missed by a lot of people - will miss her sunny personality and lovely singing in our quizzes.
Nicole Muir

Rita had the authentic ability to put work aside and genuinely care about us. She provided that motherly figure and constantly was interested in us and our whanau. I will forever be thankful for the friendship with Rita - she will be sorely missed but never forgotten!
Daniel Davies

To Rita´s family,
As a member of our team (TOA - Team Operations Analysts), Rita was such a key part of what made TOA, well, TOA and there will forever seat reserved for her in our hearts. No matter how busy things were, she would always be available to help us out, whether it was for actual work or just to chat. I learnt so much from her over the years and will always remember her for who she was - a kind soul who would give 1000% to any situation always with a smile and taught me a lot over all these years which I deeply appreciate and will always remember.

I am glad to have had the privilege of knowing her and the resulting friendship. She would often talk about her family (all positive I promise!) especially when the grandkids were around and how proud she was of everyone. It is going to be weird the next time we meet as a team but although she will not be there in person, I know she will be there in spirit.

Even though I am on the other side of the country, I hope my thoughts reach everyone and it was an honour to have known Rita. She will be missed but her legacy will continue forever more because as she would always jokingly say, it was always about her and that will never, ever change.
Kia Kaha,
Kow Samman

To Rita´s whanau,
Please accept my deepest condolences on the passing of your beautiful Rita. I feel incredibly grateful to have known her and to have worked alongside her. Rita was almost like my TOA mama - she looked after so many of us with such quiet strength, warmth, and kindness.
She had the gentlest presence and a way of making people feel seen and cared for, and that is something I will always treasure. She will be sorely missed by all whose lives she touched, and her love and spirit will live on through the many people who were fortunate enough to know her.
Moe mai ra, Rita. You will always hold a special place in my heart.
With love and sympathy,
Elisabeth Moemalo-Ulu

To Rita's family. I was shocked and saddened to hear of Rita's passing and am so sorry for this immense loss to you all. I have know Rita for many years going back to our very cramped work space at Firestone after the earthquakes to when she joined Collections. I always loved when she was in the office because you could always pick her knowledgeable brain or have a laugh. She fiercely loved her family, especially her grandchildren.

Fly high dear Rita.
Jan

Such an amazing work colleague and friend. Funny, dedicated to her whanau, strong leader, always had time for others, a lady of strong integrity and always advocating for fairness.
Manuia tele lou malaga Rita! Thank you for all your tautua & alofa for us StudyLinkers! Ropeta x

There are angels up in heaven, who we all sadly miss. And when you get up there, please give them all a kiss.
You fought very hard, and you fought to the end. And now you're at peace, your body can finally mend.
Your smile so infectious, your laugh like musical cheer.
A wonderful life has been lived, one filled with love and care.
The world is a little dimmer now, a shining light passed on.
But we will celebrate your being, as if you were not gone.
Fly high Angel
Michelle