Crosby Wellness Center Member Spotlight
Sara Van Arsdel
Winter Park Local Finds Physical, Emotional Strength at the Crosby Wellness Center Sara Van Arsdel sits at a tucked-away table in the light-filled Commons of the Center for Health & Wellbeing. Fresh from one of her four weekly workouts at the Crosby Wellness Center, where she has long been a member, Sara was in the middle of frantic final preparations for a solo trek to Croatia. The usual pre-trip to-dos were complicated by COVID travel restrictions and the careful choreography of a series of domestic and international COVID tests needed to enter Europe and embark on her trip. It was not the first time Sara had been challenged in big and small ways by the COVID-19 pandemic. Like too many others, Sara lost a close loved one to the virus. In February of 2021, Bob Green, Sara’s husband of 40 years and the father of their grown son, died. “My husband and I tested positive for COVID in January [of 2021]. I was asymptomatic, largely. I had very few symptoms. Bob, of course, got
COVID pneumonia, went to the hospital, and passed away in early February. And the next day, I went for my first COVID vaccine,” Sara recalls. As she tells the story of her beloved Bob’s final days, Sara turns her back. Her shoulder is lean and toned, a physical manifestation of her commitment to a fitness regime that has been a cornerstone of her grieving process. There on her shoulder is a large tattoo of Chinese characters. Its meaning? Determination. “Grief is such an interesting thing. Because you’re up, you’re down, you’re up, you’re down, you’re up or down,” Sara says. “And, of course, my life has changed so dramatically. So, Mother’s Day weekend – I bought a house, and I got a tattoo.” It’s her first tattoo. Sara, who retired in 2014 as the Executive Director of the Orange County Regional History Center, is living its message.
15
