Just weeks ago, Sundee Rutter was told she was beating breast cancer — but unfortunately due to coronavirus she was dying and her six children were saying goodbye.
Rutter, 42, died on March 16 in Everett, Washington, after contracting coronavirus. Staff at Providence Hospital were keeping visitors out her room to prevent the spread of the virus so her children had to say their last words over a walkie-talkie on the other side of the window.
CNN reports:
Her children, ages 13 to 24, were losing another parent, eight years after their father died. They gathered outside her hospital room, and staff came up with an arrangement to let them talk to her.
“They took a walkie-talkie, and they placed (it) right by her bedside, on the pillow,” her son Elijah Ross-Rutter, 20, told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on Wednesday.
Looking at her through a window, “We got to say our final words and goodbyes to our mom,” he said.
“I was able to tell her I loved her,” he said. “It’s kind of hard. In the moment, you really don’t know what you’re going to say, you know?”
Elijah said he told his mother that “everything’s going to be all right with the kids.”
“Us older siblings, we’re going to make sure everything’s OK with (the younger ones) and that they’re going to grow up to be some adults that my mom would want them to be,” he recalled
Rutter had been battling breast cancer, but was told in January she was in remission, her family has said.
“We were just starting to feel whole again,” her son told CNN.
She began to feel ill on March 2 — she was weak, had trouble breathing and had a migraine.
Her son said he first took her to a hospital on March 3. That first time, she was there four to five hours, but returned when her condition worsened.
“She fought valiantly until she could not fight any more.”
Elijah’s eldest brother, Tyree Ross-Rutter, intends to take custody of his younger siblings, ages 13, 14 and 15.
A GoFundMe page has been set up on behalf of the family to help during this transition.
“We plan on staying together, and all getting a house together … and fighting this all together,” Elijah said.
So far, the GoFundMe has raised over $476,00 of their $500,000 goal. The organizer of the fundraiser, Carrie Frederickson, wrote that the money helped Tyree afford the attorneys needed to settle his mother’s estate and start the guardianship process for his three youngest siblings.
If you would like to help this beautiful family, visit their GoFundMe page.
Rest in peace, Sundee Rutter. Your babies will be fine.
