Francesca Matus was a confident businesswoman and lifelong student, but above all a dedicated mother, according to friends and family who gathered Thursday at a Richmond Hill funeral home to remember her.

Matus was a 52-year-old mother of twin boys, Alexander and Jason, and shared a close bond with the rest of her family, including her mother, brother and sister-in-law and her nephew, said her close friend Nikki-Monique Kurnath.

“She did anything and everything for her two sons,” Kurnath said following Matus’s funeral. “She took care of them, she would support them. Her goals of being financially secure, to help be able to take care of them, was her priority.

“She always put them first.”

Matus and her boyfriend, Drew DeVoursney, 36, disappeared after leaving a bar in the northern Belize town of Corozal on April 25.

Their bodies were found, with their wrists duct-taped, in a sugar cane field on May 1. Belizean police and the FBI continue to investigate the deaths.

In eulogies, friends of Matus described her “radiant smile” and “contagious laugh.” They said she “exuded confidence” yet was always eager to learn something new.

“Life was never boring with Francesca. Everything was an adventure. She would make the simplest tasks something more fun to do,” said Kurnath, adding that Matus was a very youthful woman and always full of energy.

“Francesca was the life of a party. It didn’t matter where we were and what we were doing, but she would be able to show up and it would just be like instant chemistry,” she said. “I just connected with her energy so much. . . She worked very hard, she played very hard and loved very, very hard.”

Kurnath said she looked up to Matus, who like her, was a single mother.

“It’s as if we were soul sisters,” she said. “I thought of her as a big sister in a way, but also as a role model, because she’s a very strong single mother and a smart businesswoman and I looked up to that. It’s just a shame because I wanted to learn more from her.”