I have lived in Bergen County for the past 12 years and there was not a single day when it did not feel like home.
Home is
synonymous with comfort, belonging and community. In Bergen County, there is a
deep-seated feeling of community. Uncompromisable relationships develop between
neighbors, between peers, between YMCA staff and members and even between
people you see regularly at the grocery store.
I had first
sensed the pulse of our community when I moved to Hackensack from
Poughkeepsie. My mom had to pick me up from Fairmount Elementary School by foot
because our car had broken down. My brother was cooing in his stroller and I
hopped along, a carefree preschooler. Suddenly, the sky cackled and the dark
clouds opened up to torrential rain.
Without an
umbrella we were forced to keep trudging along in this monsoon. Wet and
shivering, we made it to the end of the block, still ten daunting minutes away
from home. We were stopped in our tracks by a seaweed green truck whose tinted
windows rolled down to reveal a familiar face - our crossing guard. Every day
we saw her going to school and coming from school. And there she was, willing
to go out of her way to take us home.
That is the heart
of Bergen County - a feeling of community that persists through thick and thin.
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