A Texas family mourning the death of their father from coronavirus has now lost their home to a fire as they tried to keep warm during the historic winter storm.
Stephanie Rubio and her three children have been left homeless just three weeks after her husband, Robert Rubio, passed away following a battle with the novel virus, reported CNN.
Robert died on January 28th from COVID-19 complications after being in the hospital for 8 days.
The family was in the midst of grieving when winter storms and below freezing temperatures caused their Fort Davis home to lose power, heat and water.
To keep warm, the Rubios relied on firewood to fuel their fireplace. When supplies ran low, Stephanie and her 15-year-old son went to the store to get more firewood. Her two other children, a 22-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son, stayed home when they began smelling smoke and alerted Stephanie by phone.
"We rushed up there to our house and it was just covered in smoke already," the mother of three said. "My daughter ran out with a picture of her dad that we got from the funeral home, with no shoes or anything."
While authorities haven’t been able to determine the exact cause of the fire, the home has been deemed a total loss, the outlet noted.
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In January, Stephanie’s husband and two sons tested positive for coronavirus.
"We were all home, the kids isolated themselves in their rooms, but when you're all home together, it's hard," Stephanie said. "Robert was the last one to get Covid from our home and he just couldn't take it...he had the Covid pneumonia part."
Robert, who was borderline diabetic, was hospitalized on January 19th and within a few days began experiencing heart failure.
"He kept telling us, 'I'm fine, I'm fine,' but we were worried," Stephanie added. "The last thing he said was, 'we got this, we got this,' and I kept saying, 'OK, you've got this,' but he just never came back."
Since their home was destroyed, the family has been staying in an empty apartment belonging to a neighbor. Robert’s cousin has since started a GoFundMe so the Rubios can start rebuilding their lives after losing everything in the fire.
"We're a strong family and we're doing good," Stephanie shared. "Well, we were doing good and then of course the fire had just happened on Tuesday, and it just broke our heart again. You know, we lost the home that had all of our memories with him in it."
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