They say you never really know what it’s like until it happens to you.

An Odessa family is living that reality after they became the first to lose a family member to coronavirus in Ector County.

COVID-19 killed Angela Madrazo's uncle Mario Arroyo.

The 69-year-old died Monday at Odessa Regional Medical Center after spending almost two weeks in the hospital by himself.

“It’s been so hard because his kids or his wife or his siblings we'rent able to go see him at the hospital," said Madrazo.

According to the Ector County Health Department, Arroyo was the second person to test positive for the virus in the county.

Since then, the entire family has quarantined themselves.

Madrazo says for three weeks, they haven’t been able to grieve together, to eat together, even to hug each other.

And that’s a reality she never thought she would live to see.

“So you go through Netflix, you go through Facebook, you go through Instagram, Twitter, and then you get tired of seeing the news even on social media. Then we start making jokes, yada yada, but then it hits you. And then you're like 'Woah. This is real'. And then you start thinking about what the news people would say. You're not going to see your family member, you're not going to be allowed to be in there, you're not going to be allowed to touch him. And if they pass you're not going to be able to say your goodbyes. You're not going to be able to do none of that. You used to think yeah right. And now it's like, it's true."

Angela Madrazo told us her uncle Mario was a welder all of his life – as well as a musician.

Tragically, his father also died in early March.

A

has been started to help the family pay for funeral expenses.