Elaine de Lourdes Pessoa Futter (4 Jun 1960 - 3 Jul 2018)

In loving memory of Elaine de Lourdes Pessoa Futter who sadly passed away on 3rd July 2018

Elaine de Lourdes Pessoa was born in June 1960 in the small Brazilian town of Caeté which lies less than an hour's drive from the large city of Belo Horizonte. She was the eldest of four children being followed by three brothers, Elcio, Edson and Henrique. She was a serious studious child who did well at school and went on to complete a degree course in Law. She was also very hard-working, having to take a part-time job as a secondary school teacher to fund her studies.

In 1986 she was working to build up her career as a lawyer in Brazil and about to start a Masters degree when along came a charming Englishman (no prizes for guessing who is writing this!) who was to change her life. After a romance conducted mainly by letter, he visited her in Brazil, she visited him in England and they got married in Brazil in February 1988 (which means they managed to complete 30 years of marriage shortly before she died). Upon marriage she decided to retain her maiden name and add on her husband's surname, thus becoming Elaine de Lourdes Pessoa Futter.

After a short period in Australia where her husband was working, she arrived in England in June 1988 where she was to spend the rest of her life (with visits to her native Brazil occurring almost annually). June 1990 brought the move to the house in Bilton, Rugby where she lived for the next 28 years followed one month later by the birth of her daughter and only child, Juliana Raphaela Pessoa Futter.

Finding work in England as a Brazilian lawyer with a limited command of English proved, unsurprisingly, very difficult so, with typical determination, she set about first improving her English, then embarking on a Masters degree at Warwick University in International Economic Law which she successfully completed in 1995. Only able to find part-time work, she undertook another course, this time a post-graduate certificate in Marketing at Coventry University. Finally in 2001 her determination paid off and she got a job as a Legal Executive in Coventry with Agco Limited, the parent company of Massey-Ferguson. She worked there until late-2014 and particularly enjoyed the opportunity to travel which included trips to Russia, Ukraine, Finland, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Portugal, Ireland, USA and even Brazil.

The problems with her health started early in 2009 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Treatment lasted for most of that year, beginning with chemotherapy, then surgery and finally radiotherapy. After a very stressful year, things largely returned to normal for the next five years. Towards the end of 2014 she started to have some difficulty in walking and after a week in hospital in January 2015 it was discovered that she had cancer cells in the cerebrospinal fluid which were attacking the nervous system. By nine months later she was unable to walk or even stand and had to use a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Various drugs were used at different times which were to some extent successful is slowing the progress of the disease but by the the end of 2017 no further treatment was possible. Her condition deteriorated more rapidly from the start of 2018 and she had limited use of her arms and hands, problems with vision and with swallowing and, in the final couple of months, difficulty with speech. On Monday 2nd July she was very ill and rushed to hospital with sepsis. She died peacefully in her sleep the following day with her husband and daughter at her bedside.