Silver Linings Finding beauty in quarantine
BY AMANDA COLLINS BERNIER
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ot that long ago, days for Wendy Fraioli and her family rushed by in a flurry of busyness. Fraioli, a mom of two, and her husband work day jobs at University of Massachusetts Medical School and in the evenings run a small business, Villari's Martial Arts Center of Shrewsbury. Their routine was a juggling act that most working parents know well; an exhausting daily sprint of running here and rushing there. “I had to pick up this one from preschool and that one from the babysitter, then go home and change my clothes while debriefing our days, before I had to bring them back to the babysitter,” Fraioli said. “It was always a struggle for me to make the two hours between work shifts quality time with my kids.” But a few weeks ago, the busyness came to a halt with the closure of schools and non-essential businesses to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The Fraiolis shut the karate school and transitioned their day jobs to work-from-home, and suddenly, their world shrank to their Worcester home. It’s been hard, to be sure. Closing the doors to their business was devastating, and working remotely with children at home presents its own myriad of challenges. 14 MAY2020
Photographer Melody Paine captures little moments while in isolation with her husband David, and children Carter, Caleb and Julia.
FAMILY STORIES BY MELODY JOY
But slowing down has also been unexpectedly refreshing, Fraioli said. “Having both lunch and dinner with my children every day, having time to do art projects and play outside, to sit together to watch TV or read books? It's been amazing,” she said. Amid the closures and stay-at-home advisories, most families have struggled to adjust to a new reality. Parents have had to play the role of teacher, a job for which they have no training. They’ve had to adapt to a new way of working, if they’re lucky enough to be working at all. On top of that, there’s anxieties to manage, cancelations to grieve, and households to run. But like Fraioli, many families are trying to find some good in the crisis: there’s nothing to do but slow down; nowhere to be but together. The pandemic has dealt families plenty of stress, but also some blessings, too. For Kristen Costa, of Somerset, quarantine offered the chance to be present for some milestone moments. Costa, a museum curator, and her engineer husband might have missed the first time their 10-month-old son Gray said “mama” or pulled himself up to creep along the furniture had they not been working from home. “We’ve also been taking lovely walks as a family that we never did,” she said. “I mean, maybe on the
