TRAGIC young York mum Rebecca Dawson, whose body was recovered from Naburn Lock a week ago, will be finally laid to rest on Tuesday.

Following a brief funeral service at St Stephen's Church, in Acomb, she is to be cremated at York Crematorium.

As the moving tributes published in the Evening Press yesterday testify, it will mean the pretty 25-year-old is at peace at last, after suffering years of chronic depression.

One tribute, from her elder brother Keith, said simply: "A flower born to bloom in heaven. So sadly missed, but at peace. Sleep tight dear sister until we meet again."

For her family, though - parents Dorothy and Peter, brother Keith, sisters Vivien, Christine, Jane and Julie, and perhaps above all boyfriend Lee and little son Levi - the pain of her loss will never go away.

Rebecca's mum Dorothy, who lives with her husband in Chapelfields, said: "I just cannot believe it. She's not supposed to go before us. I keep thinking maybe I will wake up and it will all be a bad dream. But it's not."

Rebecca disappeared from the home in York's Clementhorpe area she shared with Lee and Levi on January 16. It was Lee's 26th birthday.

She had just come out of hospital, where she was being treated for depression.

Lee left her for just half-an-hour to take his own mother home - but when he came back, she was gone.

It was the beginning of a waking nightmare for all the family.

Mr and Mrs Dawson said today their daughter had liked nothing better than to sit beside the river which eventually killed her, feeding the ducks with little Levi, who is six.

But they admitted as soon as they learned she had disappeared that bitterly cold evening in January, they began to fear the worst.

Mrs Dawson said: "We just knew. People were saying she may be here, she may be there, but we knew, because we knew Rebecca. She would not have survived on the street."

Nevertheless, the whole family joined in the search - a search that became increasingly desperate as days turned into weeks and still no trace of Rebecca was found.

All that time little Levi believed his mother was in hospital. It was only last Saturday, when Rebecca's body was pulled out of Naburn Lock, that that last flickering hope was finally extinguished.

Rebecca was the youngest of six children, 11 years younger than her nearest sister, Julie.

Mrs Dawson's abiding memory of her is as an affectionate little girl, wrapping her arms around her as she did the housework.

She was always quiet and shy - but she loved to dress up and tint her hair different colours, and she loved disco dancing.

It was only as she got older that the depression began to set in, about four years ago.

She lost all her self-confidence, and became desperately shy and timid.

Mr Dawson said: "If she was going out I even had to take her to the bus stop. She would say 'do you mind waiting for me while the bus comes?'"

The last time Mrs Dawson saw her daughter was in hospital, the day before she discharged herself and disappeared.

She said: "She looked so lost when I left her that day. You wonder did we do enough for her while she was alive. But you can only do so much."

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