Mom chose this poem to leave for those she loved. We share it now, just as she wanted.

To Those I Love When I am gone, just release me, let me go - so I can move into my afterglow. You mustn't tie me down with your tears; let's be happy that we had so many years. I gave you my love, you can only guess how much you gave me in happiness. Thank you for the love you each have shown, but now it's time I traveled on alone. So grieve for me awhile, if grieve you must, then let your grief be comforted with trust. It's only for a while that we must part, so bless the memories within your heart, and then, when you must come this way alone, I'll greet you with a smile and a "Welcome Home."

Ruthann Whitten A.K.A. "Our Dearly and Forever Beloved." June 16, 1941 - July 1, 2026

Ruthann Whitten, of Providence, Rhode Island, passed away on July 1, 2026 at the Hope Health Hulitar Hospice Center at the age of 85. She was born on June 16, 1941 in Wheelersburg, OH to Iva (Hutchinson) DeAtley and Charles Adams. She was preceded in death by her mother, Iva DeAtley; her adoptive father, Harrison DeAtley; Charles Adams; her brother, Paul Adams; and her sister, Cindy Vanhoose. She is survived by her daughter, Karen Paritee, and son-in-law, Michael Paritee; her son, Alexander Whitten, and daughter-in-law, Sandra Whitten; her son, Bryan Whitten; her four grandchildren, Nicolle Whitten, Alexander Whitten II, Jenna Paritee, and Lili Whitten; her sister, Janet Hricko; her brothers, Dale Adams, David Adams, Joe Adams, and Curtis Adams; her former spouse, Thomas Whitten; and many nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends.

She had a long, fulfilling, and award-winning career, working for 31 years as the treasured and indispensable office manager for the Brown University Classics Department. She retired in May 2009, her reign as beloved as it was supreme.

To honor her wishes, she will be cremated, and no formal service will be held. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Providence Animal Rescue League | Rhode Island Animal Shelter, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Rhode Island, or The Nature Conservancy. She was also a lifelong blood donor, and would be equally honored by a gift of blood in her memory through the American Red Cross or a local blood bank near you. Thank you on her behalf for the kindness of any gifts given in her honor, in support of causes she held close to her heart.

From Those Who Love You

On behalf of all of us who were lucky enough to be yours.

Dearest Mama,

We miss you so much. We love you so much.

Your life was a love story. It makes no sense to us that the world can go on spinning when you're not here to talk to and to hug and to laugh with and to lean on and to share our lives with - but there was never going to be any getting around feeling like this with a mom who made it her life's work to treat us the way you did. If you could have spared us this pain, we know you would have. But to do that, you would have had to be the kind of mom you refused to be. Instead, you decided to make us the beloved, constant objects of your unconditional love and attention. So here we are. Devastated, and also very, very privileged to be the ones with the problem of missing you this much. This is what happens when you get to be loved the way you loved us.

Anyone walking into your house would find a museum built out of us. Forty-nine years of letters, cards, photos, pictures we drew, lists of our first words, handmade birdhouses, our first spelling tests, our college transcripts, customized pottery from the grandkids, decades of our accomplishments and gifts we gave you - all of them treasured. You were a traveling museum, too, literally wearing your hearts on your sleeve whenever we visited. You'd greet us at the door in one of the T-shirts one of us or one of the grandkids had made you, and the next day you'd be wearing another one. You did everything you could to make sure we knew you were there for us, part of the cheering squad, celebrating and applauding all of our glories - the recitals, the graduations, all our meaningful moments and milestones - even when it meant ten hours on the road for a two-hour event in which you knew, before you even left, your grandchild would be performing for 2.3 minutes. Max. It wasn't just the things you held onto, or how you always showed up. It was the way you held onto us, always - even when your arms were already full.

You made sure that whatever we were scared of, whatever hard news we were carrying, we were not to be alone with it on your watch. I remember once one of us hadn't wanted to share something hard a doctor had said, not wanting to worry you. You asked us to imagine if it had been one of our own kids who'd just gotten that news - wouldn't we want to know? That was ninja parenting. You didn't lecture us on why we should never keep things from you - you used the respect we knew you had for us as parents, and the way you knew we felt about our own children, to get us there on our own. It relieved us of the fear and guilt that we'd be burdening you, and allowed you in to help.

You always said, "Hope you have a great day." And then you spent your life making sure we had as many as possible.

What a great sense of humor you had. Your meme game was supreme. You spoke with total conviction, even when you didn't know the answer, and even better, when you knew you didn't know the answer. Your certainty was so complete we named it: Ruthannisms. You always rooted for the underdog and championed social justice. You loved a good British comedy, a cooking show, a NASCAR race, an ice skating competition, a singing competition, a cozy mystery, and any Christmas special your grandkids wanted to watch for the thousandth time. You loved Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi, Words with Friends and the Spelling Bee. Gnomes and songbirds and sweet black tea and board games and hot wings night and crossword puzzles and Easter egg coloring and Lego-building and racing Hot Wheels and tea parties and picking dandelions with grandkids who think they're the most beautiful thing they've ever seen and sitting with us on the porch for hours on end and any time you could spend with us anywhere doing anything at all. Or doing "nothing" at all.

People gravitated toward you. Graduate students who'd long since left Brown University still wrote to you, years later. You became pen pals with a kid in college who wished her mom would write to her like you wrote to us. No holiday was complete without your mac and cheese, your sweet potato pie, your chocolate chip cookies. If something was someone's favorite food, you didn't just make it for the holiday - you made a separate stash of it, just for them. You called to warn us before storms, and called again after to make sure we were okay. You kept every secret we ever told you, even the ones we probably should have kept to ourselves. You saved every video of us ringing your doorbell, until you ran out of room to save them.

We want to tell you what an honor it is to be a part of your story, and how grateful we are that you were the foundation of ours. When you have a mom like you, the truth of "Mom, you taught us everything we needed to know. Except how to live without you" cracks you open. But because you were always preparing us for life, you knew how much being here without you would hurt. In anticipation, you built us so well, loved us so much, and wove yourself so thoroughly into everything we are that we will never be without you. What a blessing and a refuge to carry you with us.

Across all of your many interests and talents, your ultimate superpower was how you nurtured people and things so they could come into their own. We see it in everything you did. We see it in how you wrote. We will always treasure your hilarious stories written as though they were dictated from inside the minds of our pets and other animals - like Aromatic the Skunk (who thankfully belonged to no one). Through them, you showed us that everyone belongs exactly as they are, each one just doing what comes naturally.

We see it in how you loved animals and how they were drawn to you. No wonder more than one neighborhood cat adopted you, knowing a master nurturer when they saw one. Your cats would follow you and the dogs on walks (!) and if you ever left the yard without them, they would be waiting on the porch to yell at you the moment you got home, demanding to know where their ma'am had been. They loved seeing you coming (too).

We see it in how you created. You loved to decoupage, and you were our literal "Glue Stick." You loved to knit, and you spent your life helping us knit our lives together, teaching us how to pick up dropped stitches and encouraging us to love the creating for the sake of creating. You loved to paint, an expression of your point of view that our worlds are entirely ours for the making. And of course, you lovvvved to garden - giving plants - and people - the space, time, and care they needed to grow into who or what they were meant to be all along.

Most of all, we see this superpower in how you listened to us - which is what you loved to do most, at least as far as we could tell. (Thank you for that.) Whether we were coming to you with a trial or a tribulation, you were all ears and a safe place to land. If one of us wanted to change something about ourselves - the spelling of our name, our nose, etc. - you never took it personally, told us we were already beautiful, or listed reasons it wasn't sensible. You'd ask what we had in mind, whether we'd looked into how it was done, and put into words what you sensed we were really getting at. Since we weren't busy arguing with you, we could hear ourselves think and, more often than not, that was all it took for us to realize that we didn't need to change a thing after all. (Genius.) Thank you from every part of our hearts for that sanctuary. It's a good thing you have the freedom of endless time where you are now - not that a lack of time ever stopped us before - because we're never going to stop talking to you. We've learned what's good for us.

It wasn't only in listening that you led - you led by example, showing how it feels to give and to give back. You made a point of being of service to your community, and you shared that same generous spirit with us. You also knew your people - always finding or making the gift that showed how well you saw us, and what our relationship meant to you. You also taught us how to find the people we need in our lives, a gift that is holding us up right now. To everyone reading this who has loved and supported us before, during, and after: thank you for being here for our mom, and for us. When we need your help - whether we realize it or not - we know you will send a perfectly timed, unmistakable sign, just as you have already been doing. No matter where we've been, you've always been standing by, letting us know we've got this.

Even if we're worried that we haven't expressed ourselves the way we are trying to here, we know you always knew our hearts- so you already know what we are trying to say. Most of all, if you felt as deeply loved and cherished by us as we did by you, then our hearts can rest assured.

From our hearts to yours, and back again.

With endless love and reverence, and gratitude for the inspiration of your life, Your Biggest Fans Always. (In other words, you earned your wings, Mama. And we will forever feel enfolded by them.)