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Coronavirus: who should be cared for more? 0:49
(CNN) - A few weeks ago, Sundee Rutter was informed that she was winning the battle against breast cancer. But suddenly she started dying from another disease, and her six children were saying goodbye to her ... from the other side of the glass.
Rutt, 42, died on March 16 in Everett, Washington, after contracting the coronavirus. Shortly before she died, Providence Hospital staff kept visitors out of her room in hopes of preventing the spread of the virus.
Sundee Rutter, a breast cancer survivor and mother of six children, died of coronavirus in Everett, Washington, on March 16.
Her children, ages 13-24, were losing their mother, just eight years after their father died. They gathered outside the hospital room, and the employees thought of something so they could talk to her.
"They took a walkie-talkie and put it next to her bed, on the pillow," her 20-year-old son Elijah Ross-Rutter told CNN's Alisyn Camerota on Wednesday.
Looking at her through a window, "we were able to say our last words to her and say goodbye to our mother," he added.
"I was able to tell him that I loved her," he said. "It's something difficult. At the moment, you really don't know what you're going to say, you know? "
- MIRA: Thanks to a nurse from a hospital in Washington state, a woman was able to say goodbye through FaceTime to her mother who died from the new coronavirus
Elijah related that he told his mother that "everything will be fine with the children."
"We older siblings are going to make sure that everything is fine with the little ones and that they grow up to be the adults that my mother would want them to be," he recalled.
"We were beginning to feel whole again"
Rutter had been battling breast cancer, but she was told she was in remission in January, according to her family.
"We were beginning to feel whole again," her son told CNN.
Elijah Ross-Rutter, 20 years old.
She started feeling bad on March 2: she was weak, she was having trouble breathing, and she had a migraine.
Her son said he initially took her to the hospital on March 3. That first time, he was there for four to five hours, but returned when his condition worsened.
"He fought bravely until he couldn't fight anymore," says a GoFundMe page created on behalf of the family.
Elijah's older brother Tyree Ross-Rutter intends to take custody of his younger brothers, ages 13, 14, and 15.
"We plan to stay together, and get a house together ... and fight this," Elijah explained.
So far, the GoFundMe page has raised more than its $ 350.00 goal from nearly 8,000 donors. Fundraising organizer Carrie Frederickson wrote that the money helped Tyree pay for the attorneys needed to settle her mother's estate and start the guardianship process for her three younger brothers.
"In such a dark age for these six brothers, you are the ray of light they needed," wrote Frederickson.
Sundee Rutter's older sister Shawnna Olsen called Sundee a "heroine" who always put her children ahead. Rutter had been a single mother since her husband's death in 2012, Olsen noted.
"My sister was amazing," said Olsen. "She was the first to help the one who needed it."
The children "are very dear to the family, the community, and complete strangers," added Olsen.
CNN's Hollie Silverman contributed to this report.
breast cancer-19Deaths
