Omar Suleiman

And she'd be sitting in a gathering and she'd be pretty quiet with a big smile on her face, very serene.

And she would tell me, you know, alhamdulillah, which means thank God, all praise be to God, that I can't hear because I can tell when people are gossiping, when people are saying negative things around me about other people.

Because she says even the look on people's faces changes.

So it was really interesting because she was that spiritually engaged.

rooted and and deep that she said like you could see on the looks and on people's faces when they started to speak ill about other people that their faces would change that the nate their demeanor would change and she said i would actually praise the lord

That I couldn't engage in those conversations and that I wasn't sinful for hearing them.

And what she would do is what people said at her funeral, which was really beautiful to me and was very comforting to me.

And I took it as a life mission.

That if you were new to a place or if you were kind of in the corner and not known to other people in the community and you felt left out, she was the one that literally would look around the room.

and she'd see who was standing in the corner and who was new to the community or new to whatever place, and she'd go and try to include that person in the gathering.

So even when she had impaired speech and impaired hearing, with her smile and with her warmth, she was able to welcome people wherever that was.

And so the amount of people that came

to her funeral and the stories that I continue to hear till this day, 15 years later, after her passing away, of people that said, you know, no one ever treated me the way your mother treated me.

And she connected that to God.

So that was actually part of my faith journey.

When I think of great people, when I think of people of faith, she's the first person that comes to my mind because despite her challenges, she was always...

the greatest person that you would meet, anyone that met her and that knew her would say, I've never met anyone that kind.

That was her reputation.

And she was deeply empathetic.

She would shed tears over people that she had no connection to.