’94

Journalism

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The coronavirus pandemic hit our family like a hammer. We were already taking precautions (not touching door handles, frequent handwashing, etc.) when we went to the URI-UMass basketball game on March 7. A few days later, I celebrated my birthday with my family at a restaurant, where we noticed they were taking more precautions than normal. Then, on March 13, the schools were shut down.

 

Now, my wife and I work and do Zoom and Microsoft Team meetings in the home office and at the kitchen counter, while my 10-year-old sons do distance learning and use Google Classroom in our living room and den. The teacher is really good about giving them a daily plan and they’ve been great about executing it.

I’ve gotten better at taking exercise breaks. We have a wipe board grid where the four of us log our daily steps and have a team competition (my wife and I vs. my sons) to see who gets the most steps each day. Sadly, they keep beating us.

We miss our friends. The kids miss youth sports, and will miss their elementary school graduation. I miss coaching. I miss the freedom we took for granted. But I know that wearing masks and practicing social distancing gets us that much closer to the “old way of life.”

I love being around my wife and children all the time. I see how they learn. I see how they behave. I haven’t been this close to their day-to-day life since they were in preschool day care. We take regular walks to the nearby beach and around the neighborhood and they check in on me to see how I’m doing, which has been great.