‘I’ve turned my dining room into a makeshift school house.’
Sara Wells, a mother of five and full-time trust and estates lawyer from Andover, shares what daily life — and a birthday celebration — is like while social distancing.
Coronavirus is affecting everyday life — even for those who have not been infected. We are sharing stories of its impact on local people. To share your own, please submit this form or email us at [email protected]. This story was told by Sara Wells Blais, a mother of five and full-time trust and estates lawyer from Andover, and has been transcribed and edited from a recent conversation with Emily Turner.I’m a trust and estates lawyer, so it’s a busy time for us to have people who might have been in the process of doing their estate plans suddenly want to get all their affairs in order, not knowing what’s going to happen. Work is busy and I’m also trying to deal with the kids. We have five in total — it’s a blended family. I’ve turned my dining room into a makeshift school house. It’s tough because they’re all different grades ranging from first grade all the way to high school. All the schools are doing different things by way of video teaching. They’re sending us packets and just trying to keep it all organized and keep them on track, all while I’m still working full-time, just from home.My daughter Mallory turned nine and, as you can imagine, birthday plans had to be cancelled. Mallory’s birthday always falls on the same weekend her dance school goes to New York City. So we were going to go see a Broadway show and make it all about her birthday. We had scheduled her party for next weekend with about 10 third grade girls at a hotel in Andover that had an indoor pool. That was cancelled. Mallory’s sisters and I came up with the idea of trying to get video clips of friends and relatives all over the country. I got a huge response. I think people are stuck in their houses and feeling helpless. This was an easy way for them to help make her day brighter and be involved in something good.
The full video is 30 minutes. Mallory was so surprised when the next person would come up in the video. The one that surprised her the most though was her friend from summer camp in Vermont who lives in North Carolina. I’m not friends with her parents — I don’t even know her parents — but I found her on Facebook. So I asked her to do it. Mallory was most surprised by that one.
I think because the children have each other and we’ve got a lot of stuff here at home for them to do. It hasn’t been so bad. They are all becoming closer. They can’t hang out with other friends so they may as well make the best of it with their siblings. I don’t know if that will last though [laughs].
Remember that everyone is going through this in some way. With work, clients who want to get their statements done, for example, obviously understand that I’m strapped for time. I think people are becoming much more flexible and helpful to other people when they can be. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with everybody’s ability to help others [in Andover]. I see people giving tips on [Facebook] where they most recently saw where to buy toilet paper. I see complete strangers saying ‘If you really run out, I can give you two rolls and leave them out by my house.’ It’s really telling that we are still a community even though we can’t see each other.
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