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On Thanksgiving Day, I am most thankful for Hadi.

Definition of courage and love: Hadi Dadashian

I am thankful for his example of courage.

Courage is a man who changes careers and changes countries for love.

Courage is a man who risks his life to be a photojournalist, from refugee camps to war zones, as an honest witness, not for personal glory.

Courage is a man who risks his life to save his partner — in journalism and in life — after an alleged al Qaeda attack.

Courage is a man who slogs through knee-deep sand in the dark, carrying a stretcher bearing his near-dead wife.

Courage, with humor, is a man who relinquished the stretcher to a woman military medic because she was stronger.

Courage is a man who didn’t sleep or eat for days, who moved through shock and horror, wearing desert gear in the cold of winter, following his wife from one trauma surgery ward to another, in five countries, across three continents.

Courage is a man who sat at her hospital bedside in Vancouver for months.

Courage is a man who pushed his wife in a wheelchair around Stanley Park every day, for months, until she learned to walk again.

Courage, with incredible patience, is a man who became an unpaid caregiver for a spouse with debilitating disabilities for two years.

Courage is a man who finds organic, fresh food; prepares and serves it with love, eager to help his partner get healthy again, doing every single thing for two, by himself, in a new city, in a new country.

Courage is truly a man who always vacuums with cheer.

Courage is a man who changed careers and countries again to support his wife.

Courage is a man who took a low-wage job — and stayed at it for four years — just to ensure her health care.

Courage is a man who did not complain about any of this.

Not once.

And courage is the man who, years later, is asked about a photo showing him carrying his severely wounded wife after that Afghanistan attack.

What’s that on your head? I asked, seeing the photo for the first time.

That’s you, he replied.  That’s the rest of you.

At Thanksgiving and always, Hadi, I am grateful for your love.

Fifth in a week-long series:  Love Letters to America