SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) - A Sioux City woman says she’ll think of her husband this weekend as she drives to Omaha in a car piled high with hundreds of stuffed bears and other toy animals.
Kerry Ruehl and her children will take more than 500 stuffed toys to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where her husband, Mike “Bear” Ruehl, was treated for cancer at times over a dozen years.
He died Feb. 6 in Omaha at age 60.
Kerry Ruehl told the Sioux City Journal (https://bit.ly/1hT3AYk ) that during her husband’s treatment they often would see sick children at the hospital.
“When Mike was being treated in Omaha, we’d see children in strollers or children walking, pulling their IVs, all of them getting chemotherapy or treatment,” she said. “Mike and I would look at each other and say, ’This isn’t fair.’ “
For his funeral, the family asked that people bring a stuffed animal. She thought that by donating the toys, her husband, who loved working with children, could continue spreading cheer.
Mike Ruehl played football at the now-closed Westmar College in the 1970s and coached for five years when he was a teacher at Lawton-Bronson High School. He then took a job with MidAmerican Energy but kept coaching while his children were growing up.
“Mike always felt that if he was going to take one of the kids to their practice and then wait to pick them up, he might as well help coach whatever sport they were playing,” his wife said.
Ruehl had been treated for several kinds of cancer since 2002 but ultimately died of other problems, including blood clots and low blood pressure.
Kerry Ruehl said she offered to bring the stuffed animals to the Omaha medical center and learned from a hospital official that their “care cart” was running short of such items. The number of bears keeps growing, with people dropping stuffed animals on Ruehl’s front porch and at her work.
It could take several trips to bring all the animals to Omaha, but Ruehl said she doesn’t mind.
All the stuffed animals will be good companions, she said, as she thinks of her husband and how he helped others.
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Information from: Sioux City Journal, https://www.siouxcityjournal.com
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