‘They call me the rock lady’: Locals spread smiles one rock at a time
By Annie Rose Ramos
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BALTIMORE (WJZ) — In Locust Point, Susan McArdle is known by another name. “Some kids in the neighborhood…they call me the rock lady,” she laughed.
She and her daughter, Quinn, took up rock decorating at the start of the pandemic. “We could go out for a walk and spread rocks and it was just something fun to do,” McArdle described.
They decorated and planted dozens of rocks with the simple goal of spreading a smile. “Just some happiness, if I can make someone smile, then we’re good,” McArdle said.
And a shred of happiness was something Michael Zivic was in desperate need of.
“It’s been tough,” Zivic told WJZ in an interview.
He lost his wife to COVID just days before Christmas, six months ago. Doctor Amanda Cook Zivic was only forty-four years old and a mother of two.
“She was an amazing mother, I couldn’t ask for a better mother for my children,” Zivic said of his late wife.
“There is just a palpable and constant void,” said Erika Orlaskey, describing the passing of her best friend. It’s why Orlasky set out to find a way to help them all heal and cope with the pain of such a loss.
So she thought of decorating and planting rocks of their own throughout their neighborhood of Patterson Park. “It feels like a pretty inclusive way of keeping her spirit alive,” Orlaskey added.
Before her death, Zivic painted rocks and her husband said by keeping the painting going he hoped they would be honoring her memory. And he hoped those who walk past their rock will see it and smile.
“I hope it says to them what the spirit of Amanda, which was love hard, celebrate hard, love big,” Orlaskey added.
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