This year it was Puerto Rico. Instead of looking into the volcano, Sharmila and I stared into the limitless ocean. And as Sharmila and I reflected on our lives, we came to the same conclusion we come to every year.

Thanksgiving: That ultimate symbol of strength of a family. For immigrants from India like us, when visiting our traditional family typically involves a trip to the doctor for a malaria shot, invariably “family” has taken a larger meaning in life. It has afforded us to truly embrace the larger sense of the word family.

For the last twenty plus years “family” has mostly meant those beautiful people we had the privilege of calling our friends in our journey thru multiple countries, states, cities, jobs….In that journey, our roads met and those friends chose to take a few steps together with us. Those few steps – as ephemeral as they might be – has made all the difference to the two of us.

This message is our sincerest form of saying “Thanks!!! Thanks for taking a few steps together with us. It has made the journey so enjoyable that we no longer care about the destination!!!”