‘Her body may be gone, but her spirit lives forever’: Elizabeth Moselakgomo remembered by her brother - IOL

Family and friends of Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo gathered on Sunday in Pankop, Mpumalanga for her funeral.

“Her body may be gone, but her spirit lives forever.”

With those words, Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo’s brother, Odirile Morolo, captured the central feeling at a funeral filled with grief, memories and the painful reality of a family saying goodbye to a woman whose life was brutally cut short.

The 38-year-old is one of nine women whose deaths are being investigated in Ekurhuleni.

She disappeared after leaving her Kempton Park home for an afternoon run on Wednesday, September 10.

At her funeral on Sunday in Pankop township, Mpumalanga, her brother spoke about the woman they knew beyond the circumstances of her death, a sister, mother, daughter, colleague, and passionate runner whose presence remains deeply felt by those she left behind.

“And it is that spirit we speak of today,” said Morolo. “Because no single voice can carry the entirety of who she was to us. We bring her to you through our own eyes.”

Among the memories he shared was a phrase Elizabeth had repeated throughout her life: “Go tla loka” — It will be alright."

Morolo said they had heard the words so often that their significance was sometimes overlooked.

"She said it so often we barely noticed at the time of how profound it was. We understand it now. It was not simply comforting us, she was making a promise, and that promise still stands."

Family and friends of Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo gathered on Sunday in Pankop, Mpumalanga for her funeral.

Moselakgomo was known as a sports fanatic, with running particularly close to her heart.

Her routine was familiar to her family. She would finish work, go for her run and return home at a particular time.

It was a routine her eight-year-old daughter, Khumo, knew well.

When she failed to return from her run, it was Khumo who realised something was wrong and alerted relatives. 

But her brother remembered that there was another place where his sister was happiest.

“And when the running was done for the day, there was one place where she always wanted to be: at the table on Sunday, in front of a proper plate of home-made Sunday kos,” he said.

For Khumo, however, the funeral was not simply an occasion to remember her mother.

It was an opportunity for an eight-year-old child to speak directly to the mother she had lost.

Standing before mourners, Khumo delivered an emotional tribute to her mother, describing the silence she left behind and the memories she would carry with her.

“Dearest mother, how heartbreaking that you left me,” she said, “The day feels quiet without your voice, but your love is still here.”

Khumo spoke of the things she would no longer be able to experience with her mother, holding her hand and seeing her smile, while promising that the memories they had made together would remain with her.

The young girl also imagined looking towards the sky whenever she missed her mother, believing she would be watching over her.

“I wish I could hug you. I wish you can be here. But I carry you inside my heart, so you can always be nearby,” Khumo said.

She ended her tribute by calling herself her mother's “beautiful daughter” and “princess”, telling Elizabeth how much she loved and missed her.