Leaving home is never easy.  Home is what Roosevelt Island has been to us for the better part of the past decade.

When we moved here from across the Queensboro Bridge, we wondered what all the talk about the “community” was.  Then, as we became a part of it, it seeped into us.

We now understand what being a member of this extended family is.  It is saying “Hi” to every second person on Main Street because they are your neighbors, your children’s classmates and teachers, your store-keepers, your handyworkers, your students, the folks at the post office, the librarians, the patients at the two hospitals, the Tram operators, and the so-called community “leaders.”  More often than not, they wear more hats than one, or play different roles at different times!

It is getting involved in the myriad community events, it is coming out on Roosevelt Island Day and the Halloween Parade to see all the kids enjoy games and activities, it is protesting ill-planned bus schedules and getting together in times of grief.  It is writing letters to The WIRE and sticking up notices on concrete pillars to reach out to everyone.

It is all that – and more.  It is belonging to a unique place.  It is having more friends than you knew you had.  It is being able to call people at short notice and knowing they will help you because that’s how people in a community are.

It is being a part of the wonder that this Island is, this group of people from so many countries and backgrounds that meeting a Mongolian or a Rwandan or an Australian or a Korean does not mean having to make a trip.  Just knock on your neighbor’s door, and you’ll be meeting someone from a different culture, a different nation, a different demographic.

Dhruv, my son, now five, came to 40 River Road as a two-day-old baby.  This is where he learned how to walk, how to play in the sand pit, and how to say “hello” in six different languages.  At Island Kids and at The Roosevelt Island Day Nursery, he learned that being different just means being special and that everyone on the Island is just that: very, very special.

In his class right now, there are children from no fewer than 15 different countries – where else would you find that within two blocks of your home?

So, it’s hard to leave.  I’ve been away for a brief period, so I know how much we’ll miss the joy of being a part of this community.  And yet, we are going just two hours north to central Connecticut, not as far as Slovenia or Shanghai, where friends from my Mother and Baby Group have gone.

Our dream is that when our babies from five years ago are ten years old, we will all re-group on the Island.  See you then!