They discarded him as carelessly as leftover Christmas rubbish, but when I looked closer, I recognized a wounded warrior abandoned by everyone else, someone who deserved honor, protection, and a chance to be seen instead of being thrown aside forever.

We live in a world quick to discard—people, animals, promises, ourselves. We call anything inconvenient “waste,” anything broken “beyond help,” anything wounded “not worth the trouble.”

But sometimes the things we throw away aren’t trash.
Sometimes they’re soldiers.
Sometimes they’re second chances wearing scars like medals.
Sometimes they are the very proof we need that we are still capable of saving something, of loving something, of not giving up.

Valor taught me that healing feels like coming home to a place you didn’t know was still standing. He taught me that survival is not luck—it is courage practiced breath by breath. And he taught me that when the world discards someone, choosing to stay and fight for them is the loudest rebellion against cruelty there is.

If there is a lesson to carry from this: do not measure worth by perfection, usefulness, or convenience. Measure it by the miracle that something broken is still trying. And if it is still trying, so should we.