Today, October 26, we honor the birthday of His Imperial Majesty Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi—and a story of gratitude that survived exile, suffering, and the passage of decades. Imagine opening a book by a Polish-American author and unexpectedly finding our beloved Shah in its opening pages. That book is One Star Away by Imogene Salva. The opening takes us to New York in November 1979. The Shah is receiving cancer treatment at Cornell Medical Center, far from his homeland, while television broadcasts report the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran. A Polish nurse arrives to care for him. But their lives are connected by something neither illness nor revolution can erase. As a child, she had endured Soviet deportation, hunger, and the brutality of forced exile. In 1942, Iran had sheltered her on her journey to safety in India. Decades later, that refugee child was standing beside the hospital bed of Iran’s exiled monarch. In the story as recounted, the Shah asks where the defenders of human rights are now. The nurse’s answer places one right there in the room: the man before her, whose country had welcomed her when she was vulnerable and displaced. Once, she had needed refuge. Now, he needed care. Salva confirms that her mother really did nurse the Shah in New York. The book draws on her mother’s life, with reconstructed dialogue—a daughter preserving both the suffering her mother endured and the kindness she never forgot. For me, this encounter carries a profound meaning. A child given shelter grows into a woman who remembers. A king driven from his country discovers that, in the heart of a former refugee, gratitude still has a home. On his birthday, this is a part of the Shah’s legacy worth remembering: the humanity recalled by someone whose life had crossed Iran at its most generous. Read One Star Away. Share it. Give it to someone who knows little about the victims of Soviet communism, the Polish refugees who found sanctuary in Iran, or the unexpected bonds that endure between nations through individual lives. Thank you, Imogene Salva, for preserving your mother’s story—and her gratitude. Happy heavenly birthday, our beloved Shahanshah. You remain in our hearts. Forever and a day. Javid Shah. جاوید شاه 📖 One Star Away — Imogene Salva amazon.com/One-Star-Away-Imo…