Rudy Reitz and his daughter, Sharon, are even closer now than before the virus took half their family.

“I would have to say that the nature of the situation that we’ve been thrust into, yes, the father-daughter bond is increasingly tight,” said Rudy Reitz, 57, of Kearny, who is now quarantined with his daughter at their Kearny home. “Now we have to support each other, and help each other, look to each other, and mend each other.”

The coronavirus took two members of the Reitz family in the span of nine days: first, Sharon’s mother and Rudy’s wife of 23 years, Carolyn Martins-Reitz, who died March 28 at Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville, at age 55; then Carolyn’s son, Thomas Martin — Sharon’s half-brother, Rudy’s stepson — on April 6, his 30th birthday. Both had tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. So have Rudy and Sharon, who are in close contact with local health officials and have not fallen ill.

Reitz said his wife developed a cough during the third week of March that worsened suddenly and dramatically, prompting him to call an ambulance on March 23.

“The speed that the disease developed was mind-blowing,” Reitz said, adding that it was hard even to define his feelings right now, much less put them into words. “Everybody always says exactly the same thing. They all say, ‘I can’t imagine what you’re going through.’ And ironically enough, neither can I. It’s indescribable.”

Her hospitalization was an emotional blow to Thomas, who had Down syndrome and relied heavily on his mother as his principal caregiver and closest contact. Thomas then developed a severe cough and diarrhea, and was admitted two days after his mother, said Reitz, adding that he had to get special permission to stay with his stepson so that someone in the hospital would be able to communicate with him.

“I could see that he was hurting, and I would ask him, and he would say, ‘I fine, I fine.’ That broke my heart,” Reitz said. “She was never even aware that her son went into the hospital, and he was never aware that his mother passed away.”

Reitz said Thomas had been attending a weekday over-21 program at the Felician School for Exceptional Children in Lodi up until the week before his mother began to show symptoms.

Sharon Reitz, a 22-year-old senior at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, described feeling “a kind of numbness.”

“It also doesn’t feel real,” she said. “Especially since I have never seen them since they went to the hospital. So, it doesn’t even feel like they’re gone. There’s not even the closure of getting to see them before they have to be put to rest.”

Every one of the lives taken by the virus is irreplaceable, Gov. Phil Murphy has emphasized in imposing strict measures to contain it.

But few families have experienced the numbing impact the virus has had on Sharon and Rudy Reitz, who aside from losing two family members must monitor their own health and remain in close contact with their doctor and the Kearny Department of Public Health.

Reitz said it was painful that there would be no funeral service or burial for his wife, a devout Catholic who worked as a graphic artist for the Archdiocese of Newark and served as president of the Rosary Society at St. Casimir’s Church in Newark. Likewise for Thomas. Instead, their bodies were cremated, with memorials he and Sharon hoped to organize after those kinds of gatherings are allowed to resume.

Sharon said she and her father are now each other’s caregivers, “making sure we’re resting, and eating dinner, and cleaning the house, and trying to find little things to keep busy.”

“We’ve always been close,” she said. “But now with my dad being home all the time, we’ve definitely been bonding more.”

If he weren’t quarantined, Rudy would be doing essential work as the fleet manager for AGL Welding Supply, a Clifton company that also supplies oxygen cylinders, hoses, masks and other respiratory equipment to hospitals.

Father and daughter have been buoyed by an outpouring of emotional and financial support from the parish, the archdiocese, and contributors to a GoFundMe online fundraiser launched by Carolyn’s oldest friend and Thomas’ godmother, Joni Lewin, who had introduced Carolyn and Rudy as members of her wedding party three decades ago. After Carolyn’s death, Lewin set up a GoFundMe page for the family, which as of Friday had raised more than $21,000 toward medical and other expenses.

Carolyn and Rudy walked down the aisle together at the wedding as a bridesmaid and an usher while Carolyn was still married to Thomas’ biological father, Rick Martins, who later became friendly with the Martins-Reitz family.

“This is a beautiful woman,” Reitz remembered thinking at the time. With their 23rd wedding anniversary coming up on April 26, he added, “That’s going to be another heartbreak for me.”

“She was one of the smartest, kindest people I’ve known,” Reitz said. “And her dedication to Thomas, and being an advocate for Down syndrome people, and making sure that his life was well-taken care of, was right at the forefront of everything she did.”

Sharon said her mother loved the Impressionist painters, and would take Thomas and her on regular trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, where she made an annual ritual of taking their picture at the ancient Egyptian Temple of Dendur. Sharon, a painter who also does graphic design, said her mother and Thomas would go out together to Starbucks, the bookstore, or the cinema.

“My brother loved going to the movie theater," she said. "On his iPad, that was another thing that he would look up. And he would come and tell us that he wanted to save up so that he could go see it.”

The support they’ve received, the father and daughter say, has made a difference.

“Knowing that dozens and dozens of people know us, and care about us, that is the rainbow at the end of this,” Rudy said. “When this is all over, we’ve got a lot of hugging to do.”