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'It Just Doesn't Seem Real:' Sisters Of Funeral Director Die Of COVID-19 Days Apart

CHICAGO (CBS) --  As a funeral director, Sharon Smith is faced with consoling families, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sadly, the North Lawndale woman is now in need of comfort. Her two older sisters died two days apart.

Both from COVID-19.

CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot has the story you'll see Only On 2.

"My sisters were, they were like my mother. I lost my mom five years ago and they were both mother figures to me. If there was anything that I ever needed, they were there."

Sharon Smith held back tears as she talked about her older sisters Delores Wallace and Gloria Utley.

"It's just indescribable what they meant to me," Smith said.

Delores and Gloria were both hospitalized for COVID-19. It's not clear how the sisters got the virus. They died two days apart. Gloria, who was 75, on Saturday.  Delores, 73, passed away Monday.

"I'm absolutely trying to process this. I'm very numb. I don't know how to feel. I don't know. I don't know. It just doesn't seem real," Smith said of North Lawndale.

She has six brothers and eight sisters. Delores and Gloria were best friends and inseparable. In family photos, they were always next to each other.  Smith plans to have them buried, side by side.

Smith said she had a message for everyone: She said she wants people to take hand washing and the need for social distancing very seriously to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

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