Stories: An Overwhelming Loss

During normal times, Joe Ruggiero Jr. might hold 25 funerals a month; this April there were 71. Due to a surge in COVID-19 cases, his family’s funeral home in East Boston is so overrun that the tribute lounge and cafe - normally a place for mourners to collect themselves, has been turned into a makeshift storage space. A thin white sheet of plastic held together with binder clips is all that separates the hallway from the caskets.