This is the welcome Matteo, Riccardo, and Gabriele gave their father Luigi, whenever he returned home during the pandemic. Luigi and his wife, Serena, are health care workers in Italy.
LUIGI FRANCO
“It was a relief to be able to say: ‘Today I made it, I came back home.’ It’s not easy to put yourself on the front line against something you know nothing about, but you fear. Coming home and seeing my kids was the happiest moment of the day.”
Serena is a doctor. She and her husband have been fighting the pandemic since it started. They spent many long nights on call at the hospital. That meant reorganizing their whole lives, just like most other families.
SERENA ZANCLA
“Our work increased exponentially. Being at home with three kids, plus the pandemic, meant creating a nursery school for the youngest, a preschool for the middle one, while keeping up with remote first grade learning classes. All this in tight living quarters. We mothers had to bring out the best in ourselves and reorganize our spaces.”
Luigi and Serena speak of the hope they felt whenever they looked into their children’s eyes, ensuring they made the most of every second they could spend with them.
-How did you help your mom and dad?
-Cleaning…
It was during this period that the family welcomed a new entry: a dog they call Luna.
LUIGI FRANCO
“When we came home at night, we didn’t have time to talk about our day. We had a thousand things to do, tring to manage three children. And they wanted to be with us. But getting back home was the happiest moment.”
Luigi and Serena's greatest fear was getting infected and bringing home the virus.
At the same time, being in quarantine helped them redefine their priorities.
SERENA ZANCLA
“You could concretely apply what we read in the Gospel: even at a distance, I felt closer to other families. Faith entered every home and became a point of reference for everyone.”
It's hard enough trying to bring up a young family, without a pandemic making things even more complicated. But, according to Luigi and Serena, when you work together with love, every sacrifice becomes an investment in a family's future.
Daniel Díaz Vizzi
