Dima always asked about our two cats.
When my husband and I would respond and inquire about her feline friend Mish-Mish — Arabic for apricot — she’d feign exasperation and exclaim, “He’s crazy!”
There were no signs of a frenetic cat when I visited Dima’s family these past few days. He’s been holed up in his devoted owner’s bedroom solemnly waiting for her return.
But Dima is not coming back. Our beloved, inquisitive upstairs neighbor died last Saturday after she was found unconscious in the laundry room of our Rogers Park condominium, leaving behind a pall in the common spaces where I’d glimpse her waiting for a ride to an English class or chatting up another resident.
Sometimes I’d be rushing through the foyer when Dima would stop me in my tracks with her kind brown eyes and a smile that defied the hardships thrown her way since she was born in Kuwait 45 years ago.
I knew Dima had a disability but didn’t learn until recently she underwent surgery for a hole in her heart when she was just 5 or 6 years old. The procedure took place in London, where her family often vacationed before they had to flee her parents’ war-torn homeland of Iraq for Jordan and eventually the United States.
If Dima’s physical ailments or the stress of resettling in a new country caused her any discomfort, she never let it show, and she adamantly insisted on putting others first through thoughtful gestures facilitated by her parents and brother, Omar, who is also disabled.
One Ramadan (and every Ramadan since) after I casually mentioned to Dima that I also am Muslim, Omar showed up at our door with a snack their mother, Manal, made.
When I invited Dima to a beach party over the summer, she interrogated me about the menu and whether she should bring a lawn chair. She then sent me a WhatsApp voice memo to let me know she was coming down early to help.
Sure enough, Dima appeared two minutes later with Omar in tow, holding her webbed patio furniture and a tray of tabbouleh to go with my Middle Eastern spread.
Dima didn’t settle for being a familiar stranger or bystander. She wanted to be friends.
She was a “clear example of a people person,” said Mandy Gearhart, Dima’s former English as a second language instructor.
Dima was so enthusiastic and chatty during a virtual playwriting exercise a few years back, Gearhart had to call her afterward to gently tell her she may want to give others a chance to express themselves.
“She was such a character. Her joy was contagious,” said Gearhart, the associate director of workforce development at Trellus, a West Ridge-based nonprofit designed to empower immigrants, refugees and underserved communities.
Dima also made sure to enroll in every class and volunteer at every event organized by the Middle Eastern Immigrant and Refugee Alliance, which has established a GoFundMe page to assist Dima’s family’s with funeral and other expenses.
“Nothing would stop her from learning. She was very confident with her knowledge and herself,” said Ekram Hanna, director of development at MIRA. “People would think Dima was the one who needed help, but it was the opposite. She was the one always being encouraging.”
It turns out the playwright classes Dima was enrolled in at Trellus, then known as Asian Human Services, were conducted in collaboration with Silk Road Rising, an art-making and arts service organization whose board I serve on.
Dima was so proud to share with me the video of the play she wrote about taking the U.S. citizenship test.
I chuckled when I saw the actor playing Dima tell the actor portraying the Citizenship and Immigration Services officer she didn’t want her father, Bassim, to accompany her in the room when she took the exam.
Bassim, skeptical that Dima would pass, insisted she present her medical disability waiver that would exempt her from the English and civics requirement.
She didn’t.
The play, titled “My Goal,” ends with Dima tricking Bassim by pretending she didn’t know how she fared on the naturalization exam before laughing and flashing two thumbs up signs, indicating she was indeed successful.
Dima said her play, a lesson in empathetic storytelling, was designed to convey that disabled people can perform most tasks if they are just given the “chance and time.”
“I hope all people can learn from my play and my experience ... that disabled people can do it. They are normal people and lovely people,” Dima said in a recorded interview following the presentation of her play.
Everyone who knew Dima will attest that she was lovely, but none of us would describe her as normal. She was extraordinary.
Rummana Hussain is a columnist and member of the Sun-Times Editorial Board.
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