It is not often I have the opportunity to introduce someone for whom I care as much as I do Sasha. I can think of few people who years ago were less likely to be honored here tonight than Sasha. It’s not the honor that surprises me because by the arc of her life from an early age you would know she would lead a life worth honoring. It’s not the honor but our good fortune in her being here to receive it. What are the odds that a young girl speaking no English moving from place to place would find her way to this community in America so many thousands of miles away from home?

I can think of no one who embodies more what we hold as our self-evident truths and values. Self-evident means you don’t have to explain it. You just have to observe it because it is true without explanation. Sasha defies explanation. She is a force of nature and, as you all of you know, a gift in the lives of all who have the privilege of meeting her at a time of extraordinary fear, anxiety and pain. She says things we all believe but she says them in a way you cannot believe. While a celebrated oncologist, painter and sculpture, she has chosen to work in the hardest medium of all – the lives of people who are frail and courageous, frightened and champions, failing and conquering all at the same time. If you ask them why they fight they will tell you one thing – almost in unison. “Because Dr. V. believes”.

That’s not a light burden to carry. Many of you know that from your own lives. People look to you for strength to carry on – oftentimes not knowing what it takes not to become weary in well-doing.

From being a refugee out of Yugoslavia to a renowned doctor in this country, Sasha’s story would be too good to be true except God’s stories are too good not to be true. Only God could shape and mold a life like this through the hardship, extremes, loneliness and privation she and her mother survived to eventually thrive in her new home – the United States.

In a time when we take so many of our freedoms and privileges for granted and have become so accustomed to them and even complain about not having more, we need to see our country through the eyes of one who chose to go through whatever it took to get here. Now, she and her husband Larry give out of genuine gratitude and a love for the freedom she enjoys and the people who are dear to her heart. Over $40,000 of the proceeds of the sales of her books, Seeds and Seeds From My Patients has been donated to the Cancer Foundation For Life. As well, Sasha has referred most of her patients to the Foundation and stimulated others both to give to and to be involved in the Foundation.

I like the line from author Bob Goff’s book, Love Does, “I used to be afraid of failing at something that really mattered to me, but now I’m more afraid of succeeding at things that don’t matter.” Sasha is succeeding at things that really matter and bringing others along with her.

Please join me in welcoming Dr. Sasha Vukelja tonight.