The 12 Rays of COVID-19

There’s a memo going around right now letting us know it’s OK to not be OK. In case life wasn’t miserable enough, positivity has now been branded toxic. So let’s begin with this disclaimer: Suzy Sunshine, Pollyanna, reach under your masks, and zip your lips. Debbie Downer is here to tell you COVID-19 is real. People are suffering. Jobs are gone. Families are separated, and politicians are grievous. Air hugs are lame. Virtual field trips are depressing, and your drive-by 40th birthday parade looked more like a Grey Poupon commercial than an actual celebration.

Yeah. Things are going to hell in a handbasket.

But then one afternoon you find yourself wandering off the beaten path at Greenbrook Park with your jeans rolled up like Tom Sawyer’s, tramping through a creek with Jeff and Jenni Zych and their almost-3-year-old daughter, Avery.

You watch Avery splash through the meandering gully, her pink dress tied up in a knot, her water shoes sinking into the sandy bottom. You watch Jeff hoist her every so often up to the sky, so she can see the birds warbling in the trees. You watch Jenni laugh whenever their dog, Fritz, gallops in her direction, a stick hanging out of his mouth, his floppy ears skimming the water.

You learn that Jeff, a regional account manager at a pharmaceutical company, has never spent so much time with his family. Before COVID-19, the admittedly high-strung 37-year-old was in the air more than he was home, traveling up to five days a week for work. When the pandemic grounded his schedule to a halt, he was forced for the first time to work from home in Lakewood Ranch.

It was jarring at first, and then something interesting happened. As the days dragged into weeks, and the weeks dragged into months, Jeff fell into a new normal. He took long bike rides with his daughter and taught her to fish. He did puzzles, coloring books, painting and swimming. He helped with potty training. He introduced her to golf.

One day, he looked at a picture of his chubby-cheeked toddler that was taken back in January, and suddenly, it hit him how much she had changed in six months. “I realized how happy I was that I got to spend every single second I could with her,” Jeff says. “Slowing down was not a bad thing. In some ways, I had more fun doing absolutely nothing. Life moves too quick; I get that now.”

So with that attitude in mind, let us provide a healthy dose of nontoxic positivity. And if you’re still feeling surly at the end of this piece, just remember the U.S. Postal Service is too broke and backed up to deliver our handbaskets to hell.

1.  “Being home, I was able to take longer walks in the morning. I started seeing so many animals — deer, alligators and coyotes playing in the early morning light. I had a hilarious encounter with a wild pig. I swear it was judging me as it tossed its head and sauntered away like I was last year’s roadkill. Over the course of six months, I got to see several different families of sandhill cranes raise their babies. A few times I had to shepherd them away from the highway. I still see a skunk on a weekly basis. It’s like I’m watching a wilderness soap opera.”

Janet Allen lives in Greenbrook with her husband, Kevin, and 4-year-old daughter, Summer. She teaches English and creative writing at Venice High School.

2. “I feel like I’ve been given time to breathe, like I can stop and smell the roses in a way I couldn’t before. So many of us were running in different directions with candles burning at both ends. It was hard to keep going at that pace, or maybe we didn’t notice because we were all going at that pace. I’m definitely a better person now, less overwhelmed and more balanced.”

Jeffery Kin is the managing artistic director of The Players Centre for Performing Arts, which recently wrapped its 90th (and final) season inside its storied Sarasota playhouse. The Players is in the process of moving its North Tamiami Trail theater into temporary digs as it forges ahead with a capital campaign to build a $30 million performing arts complex at Waterside Place in Lakewood Ranch.

3.  “This crisis has really reinforced the purpose of the [Lakewood Ranch Medical Center] auxiliary. People take a lot for granted until there’s a crisis — especially a health crisis. It reorients us. We appreciate nurses when we’re sick in the hospital, but we need to value them when we’re well, too. Our mission has always been to make sure our nursing students get the support they need to finish their degrees. Last year we decided to include candidates who are going for their master’s degrees. The one thing that has rung true to me throughout all this is that the auxiliary is on the right track.”

Carole Cowan is the president of the Lakewood Ranch Medical Center Auxiliary, which supports the health needs of the community and provides scholarships to students pursuing careers in nursing and other health care careers.

4.  “The day they shut us down, I cranked it up. I was like, how do we punch this thing in the face? The restaurant industry is a dog fight, and I’m a fighter. I said to my employees: ‘Let’s not just sit around and wait for things to open back up. Let’s figure out a way to serve the community.’ In four days my management team built an online grocery store that had 180 items on it. There were so many shortages at the big-box stores; meanwhile my vendors were sitting on cases of toilet paper. I think I was selling into car trunks on March 21. It was incredible. People who had never heard of us before were coming to get groceries. It kept our employees working and gave us relevancy in the community.”

Greg Campbell is the executive chef and director of operations for Pier 22 and Grove Restaurant, which opened two years ago in the former Polo Grill location on Main Street in Lakewood Ranch.

5.  “COVID-19 brought to mind the importance of health. Americans scrambled for exercise equipment during the lockdown. I hope they’re still using it now. My business has definitely seen an upswing, which says to me people are finally waking up to the fact that health is wealth. What we eat and how we take care of ourselves matters.”

John Richardson is a certified sports nutritionist, a personal trainer, an MMA conditioning specialist and the owner of Temple Fitness in Lakewood Ranch’s San Marco Plaza.

6.  “Everybody we work with — patients, families, colleagues, donors, volunteers — is trying to embrace life with more compassion. There’s an understanding that we don’t know what a person is dealing with under that mask. Hundreds of individuals, associations and companies responded to our shortage of [personal protective equipment]. They made masks, gowns and face shields. One man who runs a commercial cleaning company in New Jersey shipped us his last case of N95 masks. His parents had been in our care, and he wanted to give back. People feel an urgency to donate, and I think that’s a beautiful outcome.”

Debbie Mason is the executive vice president and chief philanthropy officer at Tidewell Hospice and Stratum Health. Last February, she was appointed to president of the nonprofit’s new foundation.

7. “Now that my husband is no longer traveling for work, he’s getting to spend time he never would have gotten with our daughter. Before the pandemic, he was gone three, sometimes four bedtimes a week. Most mornings, I’d wake her up and tell her Daddy was on an airplane. Now that he’s home, he’s learned how to play with her — and not just play, but sit on the floor and do puzzles and go on bike rides and explore parks. Over the summer, we found this hidden stream at Greenbrook Park, and the three of us had a blast splashing in the water, just hanging out.”

Jenni Zych lives in Summerfield with her husband, Jeff, and daughter, Avery, who nailed potty training and napping during quarantine.

8. “Some of our clients had trouble procuring PPP loans back in the spring. The big banks weren’t calling them back. Our referrals to small local branches made a big difference. When was the last time you walked into your local bank branch and made a personal connection? Those relationships in banking had gone away. When COVID-19 hit, I watched the small banks come in on their white horses and save the day.”

Allison Imre is the owner and president of Lakewood Ranch-based Grapevine Communications.

9. “We took this year as an opportunity to reassess ways to get our residents outside, active and healthy. In the past, we were an organization looking to put on 1,000-person events. This year, we pivoted to help build out programs in our parks, [rolling out] classes for all ages in yoga, barre, acting and fitness.”

Keith Pandeloglou is the executive director of Lakewood Ranch Community Activities and the CEO of UTC Venture Group.

10.  “Our real estate market is on fire right now. People are fleeing big cities and moving to communities like ours. I’m seeing clients from Manhattan and L.A. with little children in tow. It’s been refreshing to get to know all these young families.”

Gloria Bracciano is a Realtor with Michael Saunders & Co. and a resident of Lakewood Ranch Country Club.

11.  “We had a Total Gym apparatus folded up in our garage that we were going to get rid of until this all began. When our community gym closed, we found a way to fit it inside my husband’s office. We rearranged his desk, got a fold-up stationary bike and a small treadmill. We sort of pushed everything sideways. It’s a little unkept, but it works. We’re lucky because this pandemic hasn’t been a terrible hardship. Every day we say thank you for our location, our weather, our community and all the little things that make the situation tolerable.”

Pamela Gunzl is a retired real estate broker who lives with her husband, George, in Esplanade Golf & Country Club. Together they have five children and eight grandchildren.

12.  “I’ve run cross-country for the past three years, and I was worried my school would cancel it this year. Thankfully, they didn’t. I felt lonely when we were all isolated in our houses. I’m grateful to be able to go back to school in person. Running cross-country with my friends again brought me out of the slumps.”

Chelsea Ball is a senior at The Out-of-Door Academy. She lives in Summerfield with her family and hopes to study biology next fall at Northwestern University.